Recipe: Bagels

I’m not the sort of person to tell you that you have to make bagels. Commercially available bagels aren’t particularly good but if you live near a bakery that makes fresh bagels the odds are that they’re going to be cheap and fairly good but if you can’t get bagels or happen to live in a place where they’re not particularly available this is an easy recipe which produces really good results for a home kitchen. You can rest these overnight but I’ve found that I personally like the sweet spot of about 4-6 hours in the refrigerator (at 12 hours these start to deflate for me, your results may vary). Luckily the recipe doubles easily and already made bagels last for up to 4 days without any taste or texture difference. If you can’t find molasses most sweet stuff will suffice: honey, brown sugar, and even dark corn syrup will all produce a crisp outside texture with a chewy inside – just how I like my bagels!

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Recipe: English Muffins

These aren’t too much work and will produce muffins with pretty good nooks and crannies for a great side dish with breakfast or a nice base for a sandwich. The only downside is that the batter needs to be made at least 3 hours ahead of time but that also means you can make the dough the night before and simply bake them in the morning. I baked mine on the stove in a cast iron pan but you can bake them only in the oven if you do not have a good heavy bottomed pan.

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Recipe: Panzanella

This is a great recipe for the summer because it’s not really cooking, it can be served cold, and it takes very minimal effort to make. Basically a dressed up bread salad and while I feel like it’s usually an appetizer dish, in the summer paired some fruit it could easily be a whole meal especially if you use really hearty bread (I used a thick seed-filled sourdough), this would pair really well with a nice piece of grilled fish or meat for a BBQ or cookout also.

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Recipe: Cake Salé

This is a great breakfast recipe or even a lazy hot summer afternoon. It’s basically a savory cake (as the name implies) that you can customize any way you want. I put cheese and vegetables in mine but you could easily add any type of meat or nuts or anything else your imagination wants as long as it is chopped thinly and not watery. It rises but not much so if you want bread-like slices you’ll need a narrow pan not a loaf pan. This is good plain or with a bit of butter or cream cheese and would be really nice at a tea party too.

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Recipe: Country Loaf

This is my go-to bread recipe. It’s not exactly no knead (I cannot understand the Internet’s obsession with no knead bread though) but it’s a very low effort bread. The original is made of a combination of bread flour and wheat flour but I actually ended up (after 10 different loaves) using white flour and rye instead because I like the denser, chewier texture you get. You can adjust the percentages to your liking this is just my personal taste. This is really good toasted with some butter or jam and makes a very hearty sandwich bread.

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Recipe: Spicy Cheesy Rolls

The recipe so nice I made it two weeks in a row. This is a really super simple tear and share style bread which is basically savory cinnamon rolls. If you weren’t in the mood to make your own roll dough you could probably substitute ready made pizza dough as well. The original recipe called for a spicy masala paste but all I had on hand was harissa, I imagine any fairly dry sauce or paste like pesto would do but even a savory jam would probably be nice.

Spicy Cheese Rolls

Recipe: Banana Bread

It couldn’t be simpler to make banana bread and it’s what nature intended for all those bananas you seem to end up having leftover every now and then. Perfect with butter, jam, or a smear of cream cheese or even just by itself this recipe takes about 10 minutes to come together in a single bowl and the results are great. Add in coconut flakes, nuts, or even some chocolate chips to take it to the next level.

Banana Bread

Recipe: Potato Rolls

I never have “leftover mashed potatoes” but I really wanted to make potatoes rolls and found this great recipe. I am still unclear if the potato in them really does anything but they were so good I literally made them three times in a month so maybe it does? These wonderful fluffy rolls are perfect with soup, salad, or as a breakfast accompaniment and come together with very little effort. Also since they’re individual rolls instead of a loaf of bread they last a good 3-4 days without going stale (if they last that long before you eat them of course)!

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Recipe: Crumpets

A British staple filled with nooks and crannies these aren’t available at all in Estonia so when I was craving them I thought I’d be kind of out of luck or that the recipe would be super difficult but I was pleasantly surprised that it’s no more difficult than making pancakes. I used biscuit cutters for the mold rings which was a little annoying but doable. These are really lovely with a bit of jam and cream cheese.

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