Bread Recipes & Ideas

Poking around the fridge and pantry the other day, I unearthed several ingredients from my boyfriend’s heritage (Korean kimchi) and my own (Vietnamese noodles and rice paper wrappers) and I wondered, why not combine them into one dish? This is a little twist on the traditional Vietnamese gơi cuốn, or summer rolls, filled with fresh vegetables, golden tofu, and the spicy, tangy crunch of pickled cabbage.

It almost seems wrong pitting one type of recipe against another, but we realize that individual preferences can be quite strong when it comes to Irish soda bread. Did you grow up on the sweet Irish-American version? Are you a purist who sticks with flour, salt, baking soda and buttermilk? Or do you like to experiment with a few modern twists?Last year, Susie shared her mother’s recipe for a sweet soda bread filled with golden raisins and caraway seeds, dusted with sugar.

We’re a little embarrassed to write about this coffee cake today. Not because it wasn’t good – because it was. Crazy good, in fact! No, we’re sheepish about how quickly we absolutely devoured the entire loafIn our defense, there were four of us doing the devouring and we were absolutely starving by the time it was finally shaped, baked, and cooled. Plus it was just really, extremely, ridiculously good.

We have been thinking a lot about muffins this week; we often neglect to make muffins, and we wonder why! They are quick, easy, and simple to clean up. They are great little snacks during the day, and they are awesome for grab-and-go breakfasts too. So we were really pleased when reader Elise sent us this tip about a pumpkin chocolate chip muffin recipe.Elise says: I found this delicious recipe for Pumpkin Bread/Muffins at thefreshloaf.com that I wanted to share! They have such a great texture.

When you hear the word dumpling, what does it make you think of? Asian pot stickers? How about tamales, ravioli or bread pudding? Well according to the authors of The Dumpling, those all fit into the same category, and they set out to show us how through a big batch of Hungarian bread dumplings.The cookbook The Dumpling: A Seasonal Guide sets out to categorize an elusive food that transcends cultures and continents.

Every week we bring you our favorite cooking and eating from Serious Eats. This week Serious Eats is on a serious pumpkin spree, with pumpkin olive oil bread, pumpkin turkey chili, and more good fall cooking. Read on for these plus a sandwich with four (four!) kinds of cured meats from Nancy Silverton and a guide to keeping chickens in the city.

We mentioned this recipe a couple weeks ago in our roundup, but we just made these muffins again and we had to report back on how easy, fast, and good these are.We found this recipe for zucchini muffins at Simply Recipes earlier this fall, and we’ve made them several times since. We like this recipe because it calls for oil or melted butter, instead of creamed butter and sugar. This makes them easy to whip up in just one bowl, without a mixer.We also love how flexible they are.

Still thinking about what to serve on Halloween tomorrow? How about this? Dorie Greenspan calls it a “recipe in progress.” We call it yum…This dish certainly has a wow factor—a whole pumpkin stuffed with bread, cheese, garlic, and heavy cream, baked until creamy and bubbly. We frequently see small pumpkins that are stuffed and served individually, but with this one, everyone slices or digs in to the same big gourd.Dorie admits that the measurements are rough.

If you’ve ever wanted to learn to cook squid, here’s a good introductory recipe. Ojingo bokum is a dish of sauteed squid and vegetables in a spicy sauce. The flavors are savory and the dish is very filling.

Looks pretty good, right?Alas, this loaf made from Local Breads by Daniel Leader fell far short of our hopes and expectations. Read on for the whole saga…This country boule started the night before with a liquid levain, one type of preferment commonly used for sourdoughs. We used our own starter instead of making a new one following Leader’s instructions. After examining his recipe and ours, they both seemed to result in the same liquid-to-flour ratio.

James Oliver Cury has a list of the top ten weirdest recipe names he’s come across in his work at Epicurious. We agreed that some were odd; others not so much – but we’re curious about your own weird recipe names. He says: Some catch my eye because they sound so delicious. Others force a double-take thanks to the name alone. “Ugly but Good” cookies? What’s the advantage of making that?

Like an ant to the picnic, we couldn’t resist trying out another bread recipe from Daniel Leader’s book, Local Breads, this past weekend.We had such success making baguettes last time, so we thought we’d try another straight dough recipe. We decided on Ricotta Bread, a basic yeast bread–no sourdoughs or starters–enriched with milk and ricotta cheese. Yum!The dough was pretty sticky at first and difficult to work with.

We had a free afternoon this past weekend and thought we’d try out the baguette recipe from Local Breads, Daniel Leader’s latest book on bread baking.Leader says that he didn’t include this recipe in his first book because he thought it was “too simple.” In putting together this book, he realized that “its accessibility accounts for its charm.”Well. We’ll see about that!

Eclairs, fruit pastries, napoleonsand other little treasures of the patisserie usually have one thing in common: pastry cream. Pastry cream, or creme patisserie, is an egg-enriched custard with flour or cornstarch for added thickening power, used to fill or layer pastries. It’s quite similar to vanilla pudding, and super easy to make. The recipe here only includes three egg yolks, considerably less than a traditional French recipe – which can include up to ten.

We are thinking about summer food – breaded fish flash fried, or chunky crab cakes with mango salsa. One of the key ingredients in these is breadcrumbs. It’s easy to get these in a can, but just as easy to turn your homemade or sandwich bread into fresh, yummy breadcrumbs. We really notice a difference when we use homemade breadcrumbs.