Quick rise breads are an easy addition to most any table, holiday or no. They are a great way to use up left over fruits and vegetables and more often than not, you'll find yourself or a loved one sneaking into the kitchen for an extra piece. Make them super sensational with these tips and recipes!
5 Quick Rise Bread Recipes & 5 Ways To Make Them Better
Check out these 5 tips to making your breads be all they can be for your tables and tummies. Make sure to add your own tips to the comments below if you have a good one to add to the list!
• Preheat For Longer: Set your oven to preheat and once it's ready, then make your batter. The leavening agents in your batter will appreciate an oven that's hot and has been hot for a solid 10 minutes before being placed inside. Try setting the oven, then assembling your ingredients and making the batter to allow enough time.
• Check Your Baking Powder and Baking Soda: Do you know how long that little orange box has been in your cabinet? Neither do we, just make sure it can still hold it's own, otherwise your breads won't rise as much as they need to and will make things a little underdone and a little flat. Usually products bought within the last year will still have enough oomph to get the job done.
• Bake For Longer, Slower: Most recipes for quick rising breads will bake somewhere around 350 degrees for just over an hour. Try baking the first 40 minutes at 350 and then reducing your oven to 325 (cover with a foil tent to avoid excess browning) until they finish up. It will help eliminate the little bit of soggy middle without making the outside of the bread tough.
• Use A Water Bath: Even if you're not into setting your pans in water themselves (which isn't needed) try placing a Pyrex of water below your baking breads to keep the oven humid and moist. It will be just enough to allow for pretty cracked top bread without resembling the Grand Canyon.
• Use The Right Pan: Use light-colored metal pans, (preferably aluminum). Dark pans absorb the heat and often result in burnt loaves. Nonstick finishes don't really matter, but proper greasing or parchment papering will prevent sticking. Glass pans are our last choice as they act as an insulator and can often burn or rapid bake the outside of the bread while leaving the inside still soft and gooey.
Looking to make a super tasty bread right this minute? Check out 5 of our favorites, they're all sure to please a holiday crowd and make for super tasty edible gifts as well!
Give These Recipes A Try
• How To Make Banana Bread In Under Ten Minutes
• Blueberry-Oat Quick Bread
• Hunk o' Fruit: Bill Granger's Oat, Pear, and Raspberry Loaf
• Olive Oil Pumpkin Bread
• Starbucks Chocolate Cinnamon Bread
(Image: Flickr member land camera land camera licensed for use by Creative Commons)
Comments (8)
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These are great tips. My quick breads have always been hit and miss, but I am a terrible preheater, I never check my baking powder, and my loaf pans are made of glass.
view tasterspoon's profile
Ha! I could've written tasterspoon's comment. I recently used a stove with built-in digital readout of the oven's temp and was surprised at how long it took the oven to preheat. Since then I've tried to preheat longer at home and seen what a difference extra time has made.
view kushkush's profile
The best tip I ever got for quick breads (and everything that goes together like them) is to not beat the batter too much, just enough stirring to get everything together and all the lumps out (or even just most of the lumps out).
I always had a habit of beating the hell of the batter, and the loafs would end up too tough and dense.
view Trlstanc's profile
I second all these comments, especially about not over-mixing the batter. Some lumps of flour are okay!
My favorite quick bread is still the always-delicious beer bread. Couldn't be easier to make, and it's invariably a crowd pleaser. My favorite recipe is here</a href>.
view eprewitt's profile
The baking powder and soda really do make a difference. I've had the same recipe turn out light and fluffy once, and dense and chewy the next time, and expired baking powder was the only thing I could pinpoint (same pans, preheating time, etc.)
view MegP's profile
I was recently at a church fundraiser and bought some zucchini muffins...whoever made them should have read this post first! It was sooo disappointing. Thanks for the good tips, I'll be making sure my Zucchini doesn't turn out bad!
view mdevans's profile
Ikea makes a wonderful long and narrow loaf pan which holds the same amount of batter as the regular size loaf pan.
It shortens the cooking time as well as eliminating that soggy middle/tough crust phenomenon.
The slices are also a much more managable size, I find.
view kathrynp's profile
I have a couple of a couple of those long narrow pans hoping for nice small slices of bread - the metal is quite thin and very textured. I tried to make ordinary bread in them and the loaves were dreadful - never browned at all, and stuck to the pans something wicked. But they might be perfect for quick breads!
view Bobolink's profile