Bread Maker Cinnamon Bread

Happy Thursday! On top of self  isolating, we have been doing a kitchen reno so we haven’t had a kitchen for a few weeks and will not have one for a few more at least. I am already having baking and cooking withdrawals as that’s what I love to do. I especially love to bake every Friday night as a release after a long week at work. Since I anticipated that I’d be out of a kitchen for a little while, I did some baking beforehand to “get it out of my system” so I’ll be sharing those recipes with you for the next little bit. Once the new kitchen is done, we can do lots of baking and cooking in there to share with you all.

I tried out another bread maker recipe not long ago. This time I made some raisin bread and boy was it delicious. I actually made it a few times and did a loaf right before the kitchen was pulled apart so that I could have some yummy bread for breakfast’s.

Bread Maker Raisin Bread

You will need...

1¼ cup of warm water (microwave for 1 minute and 30 seconds roughly)

2tbsp. of butter

3¼ cup of flour

2tbsp. of sugar

1¼ tsp. of salt

1tsp. of cinnamon

1tsp. of active dry yeast

½-3/4 cup of raisins

Warm your water and add to the bread maker pan.

Now add in the butter, sugar, salt, yeast, and flour and sprinkle the cinnamon on top.

Put on the sweet setting on your bread maker and choose the large loaf and darker crust.

You should hear a bunch of beeps about half way through and that’s when you’ll add in the raisins.

When it’s ready, allow it to cool before slicing it and put it all in a tightly sealed container. Enjoy!

Bread Maker Bread

Another week at home so as I was cleaning up I rediscovered my bread maker. I haven’t used it in some time as I have been so busy and it was easier to just buy bread. Since I have been left with so much free time on my hands, I thought I’d make some fresh bread (I’ve actually made a few loafs and will be making even more). Fresh bread is always so yummy. I made some to have for breakfast and I made some to go along with some pasta the other night.

I will admit that in the past it took some figuring out which recipe worked the best. I have made some bread that didn’t rise and some that were super dense, but take a look at the recipe below to see one that worked out perfectly!

White Bread Maker Bread

You will need...

4 cups of sifted flour (must must must be sifted)

1 ½ cups of warm water (must must must be warm)

2 tsp. of sugar

2 ½ tsp. of dry yeast (I use break maker yeast)

2 tsp. of salt

2 tsp. of oil

How to...

Sift flour.

Warm up your water. You don’t want it to boil but you want it slightly warmer than room temperature. I put it in the microwave for about a minute. Pour the water into the bread maker pan.

Now sprinkle the yeast and then the sugar on top. Allow to sit and foam/bubble for 5 minutes.

After the 5 minutes are up, add the salt and then the oil. I used Mazola oil but you can use olive oil instead.

Finally add the flour.

Place the pan into the machine and put it on the basic bread setting. Choose your crust colour and then press start. This setting usually takes about 3 hours.

Once the final “bread is ready” beep occurs, remove the pan and allow the bread to cool in the pan. The pan should be cool to the touch before you try to remove the bread.

You can slice and serve the bread warm or you can let it cool completely and either leave it or slice* it all and store in an airtight container.

Enjoy the fresh delicious bread!

*a regular bread knife will do the job but my dad gave me an electric knife and it sliced my next loaf so perfectly.

Banana Bread

A few posts back we had started our mini baby shower planning theme. With all that is happening in the world right now, we are delaying the baby shower that we were planning and blogging about until later on. When we figure out a new date and pick up with our planning, then we will continue with that mini theme.

Since many people are having to stay inside and isolate themselves, we thought that we should do some posts of things to do while you’re staying home.

Today we have Margie’s Banana Bread recipe that we are going to share with you. It’s super simple and quick to throw together. It’s also super yummy and perfect for a nice snack or to have with your morning tea or coffee.

You will need...

6 tbsp. of butter

1 cup of brown sugar

4 eggs

3 cups of flour

2 tsp. of baking soda

4 tsp. of baking powder

2 tsp. of vanilla

6 bananas

First of all, this is the original recipe doubled so that you get two loaves. I actually tripled the recipe and made three loaves and froze one for a rainy day.

Here we go.

Cream the butter and sugar and eggs.

In a medium bowl, mix the flour, soda, and powder.

Defrost, if you're using frozen bananas, the bananas. Then mash the bananas in another bowl.

Alternately, add the banana and flour mix o the wet mixture in the mixing bowl.

Once everything is mixed together, stir in the vanilla.

Now you can leave them all plain if you want to, but we like to add some chocolate chips to at least one of the loaves. Usually 1-2 cups of chocolate chips is good. It all depends on how chocolatey you want it.

Pour batter evenly into pans (butter them slightly so they don’t stick).

Bake at 350 degrees for 60-70 minutes.

Cool slightly before cutting.

 Enjoy! Oh, and Happy Spring too!

Dive In - Dip Recipes

Another week has flown by and now it’s time for another week of our Summer theme posts. This week the shade that we chose is a dark navy metallic shade called “Dive In.” We automatically thought about dips when we heard this name, food dips, not dips in the pool, so we went on the hunt for recipes that sounded super yummy and that we needed to try and we found some. One is savoury (a spinach dip) and one is sweet (a cannoli dip). So take a look below and see what we created...

If you’re craving something sweet...try this cannoli dip recipe.

Sometimes you just need a little spoonful of sweetness to get you through the day/hour so a dip like this would be perfect. Canollis are something that I have always wanted to try and make but there’s a lot of work to go into making them. This dip is the perfect alternative.

You just need 1 cup of ricotta (dry and drain it if you can as we didn’t and it made the dip a bit watery), 1 room temperature brick of cream cheese (8 oz.), 1 cup of powdered sugar, 1 tsp. of vanilla, and 2/3 cup of chocolate chips (mini or regular both work).

Whip the cheeses and the sugar until smooth. Then add the vanilla in and whip for about 30 seconds.

Lastly add the chocolate chips and give a good stir.

Allow your dip to get a bit cooler in the fridge.

While it’s cooling, chop up some fresh fruit. We used pineapple and strawberries but you experiment with other fruits and berries too. We also broke up some waffle and sugar cones to dip as well.

If you’re in the need of a savoury treat...you can give this spinach dip a go. This one would be a perfect addition to a potluck or family dinner as a starter or in our case it was a perfect addition to games night.

For the dip you will need...

8oz. brick of cream cheese

1/4 cup of mayonnaise

2 cups of uncooked spinach

1 tsp. of onion powder

1/2 tsp. of garlic powder

A sprinkle of ground pepper

1/3 cup of parmesan cheese

1/2 cup of Monterey Jack cheese

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Boil your 2 cups of spinach and set aside.

Heat the cream cheese in the microwave for about a minute to soften. Keep an eye on it.

We combined and mixed our dip with a mixer but you can do it by hand instead. Combine the cream cheese, spinach, mayonnaise, onion and garlic powder, grated cheeses, and pepper. Mix well.

Bake in a small casserole dish for 10 minutes.

When it comes out of the over, give it a good stir and serve immediately.

When it came to dipping we used a fresh French loaf and tortilla chips but you can also dip veggies or pita chips. You can also use the dip on burger, sandwiches, crackers, in wraps, and on meat.