Warm from the oven or grabbed as a quick snack, this cake is yummy either way. This is a recipe my mom used to make when I was growing up. One of the beauties of it is the ingredients are things I almost always have on hand.
Baked Goods
Blueberry Sour Cream Muffins
I adapted this recipe from the Poppy Seed Muffin recipe. I like to double the recipe and if the kids don’t eat them all straight out of the oven, I put some in the freezer. They can be heated in the microwave for 15-20 seconds, one at a time and make a good snack.
Here’s what you’ll need, minus the eggs which didn’t make it into the picture.
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 stick butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cups sour cream or plain yogurt
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup frozen or fresh blueberries
Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease 12 muffin cups. In a mixer bowl, cream the butter and sugar together. Add in the eggs, one at a time. Mix in the sour cream or yogurt and the vanilla.
In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda and salt. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry, just until moistened. Stir in the blueberries and divide the batter between the muffin cups. Bake for 15-20 minutes.
Poppy Seed Muffins
I made a double batch of these on Saturday afternoon. By Sunday evening they were gone. I think my 14 year old son ate 4 of them as soon as they came out of the oven. That wouldn’t be so bad, but I also made a double batch of blueberry muffins (recipe will be coming soon) on the same day. The only reason we have a few of those left is that I stuck them in the freezer where they aren’t quite as accessible. What’s that saying about being eaten out of house and home? I think I’m living that.
This recipe is adapted from the Country Living Country Mornings Cookbook. Here’s what you’ll need:
2 cups flour
1/4 cup poppy seeds
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 stick of butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup sour cream (I’ve also used plain yogurt with good results)
1 tsp. vanilla or lemon extract
Heat the oven to 400 degrees and grease 12 muffin cups.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, poppy seeds, salt and baking soda. In a mixer bowl beat the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs one at a time, until blended. Add the sour cream and extract. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry, just until moistened. Divide into the muffin cups and bake for 15-20 minutes. Hide some of them from 14 year old boys and other hungry kids.
Depression Era Homemade Bread
Have you seen Clara of Depression Coooking with Clara on the news lately? She is 93 years old and has her own blog and several videos on youtube. With the downturn of the economy, people are very interested in being frugal. Clara shares recipes and stories from her own life during the Great Depression.
I watched her youtube video on making bread. I’ve altered it a bit, but not much. Clara says she uses 5 lbs of flour, 2 oz. of cake yeast and water.
Here’s what I used:
5 lbs. of flour – yes, the whole bag
yeast – I used 7 Tbs, but I think I could have gotten by with less. Maybe 4-5 Tbs.
salt – I used 8 tsp., thinking I would need about 1 tsp. per loaf. This was a bit too much salt. Next time I’ll go for about 6 tsp. Clara doesn’t mention salt, but I think the loaves would taste flat without it.
warm water – About 6 or so cups, but you need to go by what the dough needs.
I followed Clara’s direction to dump the flour in a large bowl. I then mixed in the salt. Make a well in the flour and put the yeast in. Start pouring warm water into the well. Mix the yeast and water with your fingers to dissolve. Start mixing in more flour with your hands, adding water as needed. You will eventually end up with a great big bowl of dough.
After I got all the flour mixed in and I kneaded it in the bowl for a bit, I dumped the dough on the counter and washed out the bowl.
I sprayed the bowl with cooking spray and put the dough back in, turning it to bring up the oiled side. I’m not sure how Clara handles this step, but it’s the way I like to do it. If I knew the dough wouldn’t stick to the bowl, I would have just left it in the bowl to rise without washing and oiling it.
Let the dough rise in a warm place. Cover it loosely with a clean towel while it rises to keep the dough from drying out. After it’s risen, punch it down and divide it up for loaves. I was thinking that this amount of flour would make about 8 loaves. Some of the loaves seemed a bit small though, so next time I may go with 6 instead. Also, I only have 7 bread pans. I liked how the loaf on the cookie sheet turned out though.
Cover the loaves with a clean towel again and let them rise a while longer. Place them in an oven at 350 degrees. I have speed bake (convection oven) and I baked mine for about 30 minutes.
I’ll try this again. Like I said, I need to cut back on the salt a little bit. I think that also might help the loaves rise a bit higher. The taste is good. We polished off 2 loaves in less than 24 hours! The rest went into the freezer for later.
As for cost:
$1.97 – flour
$1.00 – $1.50 for yeast, depending on how much you use and the cost of the jar
So, less than $3.50 for 8 loaves of bread. That’s pretty cheap! And no additives or preservatives, so healthier than store-bought. If you try this, let me know how it turned out for you.
Update:
I sometimes turn this into “Recession Era Bread” by adding a melted stick of butter to the warm water.
Cream Cheese Banana Bread with Orange Glaze
Cream cheese takes this banana bread to a whole new level. The loaves have an almost pound cake like texture and taste. Instead of being brown-flecked like most banana breads, this one has a lighter color inside.
Gather up your ingredients:
3/4 cup butter
8 oz. cream cheese
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups of mashed banana (about 4 medium bananas – I didn’t measure the mush)
1/2 tsp. vanilla
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
Cream the butter and cream cheese together in a mixer bowl. Mix in the sugar, then the eggs, bananas, and vanilla. In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Add them to the wet ingredients and mix until combined. Pour into 3 well-greased loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 60-75 minutes.
For the glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
3 Tbs. orange juice
1 tsp. orange peel
Start with less than the 3 Tbs. of orange juice, stirring it into the powdered sugar until you get a nice consistency. As you can see from the pictures, my glaze was a bit thin. I didn’t use the orange peel because I didn’t have any. It would add more flavor to the glaze to use it.
These loaves freeze very well.