November 17th is National Homemade Bread Day.  So, I thought I’d share with you some of my very favorite holiday bread recipes.  These are all quick breads – meaning they don’t require yeast or hours of waiting for dough to proof.  In every instance, the batters can be used to make mini-loaves (or even muffins) to give out a gifts.

Every bread here has been tested by me personally.  If you click through to see a recipe, please be sure to read the notes so you know exactly what to expect.  Happy holiday baking!

Apple Bread –  This quick bread is exceedingly moist.  I suggest drizzling each loaf with vanilla icing for added beauty and to bring out the sweetness of the apple.

Carrot Cake Breakfast Bread – If you’ve ever wanted to indulge by eating carrot cake for breakfast, this is the bread for you.  Top with cream cheese icing for the ultimate carrot cake breakfast experience.

Easy Banana Bread – You won’t believe how easy this bread is to make.  Chopped walnuts are optional but recommended.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread – If you held a bread knife to my neck and made me choose my favorite bread on this page, it would be this one.  The combination of pumpkin and chocolate is a perfect holiday treat.

Pineapple Bread – Did you ever wish you had a Hawaiian grandma to bake you holiday bread?  Close your eyes and take a bite of this bread. It’s the next best thing.

Holiday Pumpkin Bread –  This pumpkin bread features raisins and pecans.  For optimal moistness, replace the orange juice in the recipe with vanilla yogurt.

Low-Fat Date Nut Bread – Is it possible that lower fat can mean more flavor?  Yes.  This bread is best if you let it set for one day and then warm individual servings.

Banana Pineapple Bread – These are actual mini-loaves I gave to friends last Christmas.  Everyone who tried them said they were great.

Banana Coconut Bread – Another tropical play on old-fashioned banana bread, this one is even better if you sneak a handful of mini chocolate chips into the batter.

Cranberry Pumpkin Bread – This recipe comes from a 1987 magazine advertisement for Libby’s Solid Pack Pumpkin.  Make sure you chop the cranberries before using them to get the best texture.

Raspberry Grapefruit Mini Breads – This is a sweet bread with a little tang to it.  Citrus from the grapefruit and little lemon makes the raspberry flavor really pop.

BONUS RECIPE:

Bacon Spider Bread – This recipe is from a 1974 issue of Ebony Magazine.  It’s a cornbread that’s made in a skillet. It’s the only recipe on this page that I have not personally tested.  So if you try it, please be sure to leave a comment here or on the recipe page to let me know how it goes.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas… in my kitchen.  It smells a lot like Christmas too.  I just made homemade granola with nutmeg, cinnamon and cranberries.  I found some adorable little gift bags at Target in the dollar section.  They have a clear plastic front so friends can see the granola – as if the oats were pressing against the window to say, “Happy Holidays! Let me out of here!”

Since I’m giving granola to friends, I thought it would be nice to give some to you, my reader-friend.  Your holiday granola comes in the form of advice.  Like the old saying goes, “Give a guy granola and he’ll eat for a day.  Give a guy granola advice and he’ll eat for a lifetime.”

I’ve been making granola for several years, but it’s only been in the last few that I’ve consistently made the kind of granola that I enjoy the most.  To me, the best granola has distinct clusters – little nuggets of crispy, clumped oats (and other good things) that crunch when you bite them.  It makes the best granola for snacking and even better granola for dousing with milk. So…

The Secret To Making Granola With Clusters

And the secret is…

It’s flour.  Just regular plain old all-purpose flour.

The ingredients in granola are very similar to those in an oatmeal cookie, minus the flour, egg and excess sugar.  If you take just one of those components (the flour) and add it to granola ingredients, you suddenly get random instances of a cookie-like quality… the clusters.  The flour helps bind some of the oats (and nuts, etc.) together.

It doesn’t take much.  A ratio of 1 part flour to 5 parts oats works best for me.  In real terms, that equates to a 1/2 cup flour to 2 and 1/2 cups oats in most of the recipe I use.  (Actual recipes below.)

More Tips For Making Successful Granola

Mix with your hands.  Any decent granola recipe will present you with a point where you mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients.  At this point, ditch the spoons and spatulas.  Get your hands right in there and gently squeeze the ingredients together.  Stop as soon as everything is moistened.  Since we are dealing with flour now, you want to avoid over-mixing.  The human hand squeeze technique further helps to create clusters in the final product.

Don’t overcook it.  Most of my recipes call for 15 minutes of cooking at 325, flipping the granola and then cooking it 15 minutes more.  In my early days, this always freaked me out.  After 30 minutes, the granola still seems slightly moist and hardly crisp at all.  Trust me on this… pull that granola out of the oven.  The majority of crisping happens as the granola cools.  Let it set 15 minutes and get to crunching.

Add raisins or dried fruit at the end.  Nuts love the oven.  They get, as one might say, “oven-roasted” and even tastier.  Dried fruit doesn’t fare as well.  It’s already dry and it just gets more dry in the oven… and tough and chewy.  It probably goes without saying, but anything that can melt, like chocolate chips, should be added after the granola has completely cooled.

Use vanilla.  Vanilla is a lot like salt in that it adds something to the flavor of food even if you don’t recognize the flavor as vanilla.  It helps bring out the best of other flavors.  I’m surprised how many granola recipes I see without a touch of vanilla.  I say add vanilla to everything.  A quarter teaspoon is all you need. I usually do a half.

Try maple syrup.  I used to be a honey guy.  Mind you, I’m still a “honey of a guy” as the ladies say (ladies in the 1920’s, maybe), but for as much as I love honey, its flavor is pretty basic when it’s cooked down.  It tends to translate to a nondescript sweetness.  I now use maple syrup in place of honey in most of my recipes. It adds a warmth, complexity and notes of awesome maple flavor.  Even if I’m using a recipe that’s better suited for honey, I’ll replace 1/3 of that honey with maple syrup to add a dash of mystery.  Then, it becomes like vanilla in the way that vanilla is like salt in the previous paragraph.

The Recipes:

Here’s two of my favorite recipes that make granola with lots of clusters.

Maple Pecan Granola Clusters

Holiday Spice Granola With Cranberries

You can find more granola recipes in The Homemade Cereal Section of MrBreakfast.com.

For tips on turning homemade granola into cool Christmas gifts, check out the part of the site called Breakfast In A Jar!

Happy Holidays Everybody!

During the holidays, I like to put my regular bread pans in storage and pull out my mini-loaf pans.  That way, anytime I make bread I have instant gifts and I’m less inclined to personally over-indulge.  And believe me… I am very good at overeating during the holidays.  Sometimes, I’ll wake up and see open Tupperware on the kitchen counter.  What magic elves have been eating my food?  Alas, sometime around 5AM – half-aware and partially dreaming, I stood in the kitchen and finished the Thanksgiving stuffing or drank most of the Christmas eggnog.  Holiday food in reasonably-sized, single-serving portions is a good idea for many reasons.

The loaves you see here are Raspberry Grapefruit Mini Breads.  They have a vanilla cake base that’s loaded with fresh raspberries and brushed with a grapefruit syrup after baking.  Brushing them with a simple syrup helps keep in the moisture so these breads will still be moist and at their best for a couple days after baking.

Almost any quick bread recipe (those not using yeast) can be made into mini-loaves.  It’s just a matter of having the right pans and keeping your eye on the cooking time.  I used raspberries for these loaves, but you could just as easily use blueberries or chopped strawberries.

The ingredients are pretty basic: flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, half and half, grapefruit juice, lemon zest, vanilla, eggs, butter and raspberries.

For ingredient amounts and a printable recipe, click here.

The first thing you do for this recipe is make the simple syrup that you’ll use at the end.  All you do is mix some juice with some sugar and cook and stir until it’s evenly clear and slightly thickened.  I used grapefruit juice because I wanted a distinct citrus flavor to complement the berries.  But here, you can play around with other juices to make the breads distinctly your own.

Like muffins, most quick breads benefit from a few simple rules: 1) Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately; 2) Use a gentle mixing motion when combining the wet and dry ingredients; 3) Fold in any berries or nuts at the end with a gentle touch; 4) Don’t overfill the loaf pans; and 5) Check your baked goods at least 5 minutes before they’re supposed to be done.

To test if the breads are done, poke a toothpick into the middle of loaf.  If it comes out clean, the breads are done.  Brush the tops with the syrup as soon as you remove them from the oven.  When the loaves are cool to the touch (about 15 minutes later), remove them from the pan and brush each loaf again, this time on all sides with the syrup – including a second coat for the top sides.

If you’re wrapping these as gifts, let them cool 20 to 30 minutes or more so the syrup is completely absorbed.  I find that squares of wax paper and a little twine are all you need to make charming little presents. You can visit your local crafts store for custom labels and festive food wrap if you want to go more crazy.

Now, all that’s left is for you to eat some delicious bread and to spread some homemade joy.  Listen as your friends sing, “Wow!  {Your Name Here} is so cool!  He (or she) brought me these delightful, little loaves of bread.  So flavorful!  Boy, oh boy… {Your Name Here} is just about the best person in the whole wide world.”

Anyway, that’s what I imagine my friends say.  That and “Oh no!  Tight pants.  Looks like he’s been eating leftovers in his sleep again.”  (That’s a reference to the first paragraph… If you read so much that you understood that then {Your Name Here} really is super awesome!)

Happy holidays!  Enjoy the bread!

This post is a companion piece to the following recipe on MrBreakfast.com:

Raspberry Grapefruit Mini Breads

A Bounty Of Breakfast Booty

Don’t you hate people who are hard to buy gifts for?  I mean… you probably love them… buy buying them gifts… ugh.  Luckily for my friends and family I’m not one of those people.  Look at this Breakfast Bounty.

T-Shirts:  Bacon Makes It Better, Rice Krispies and Wheaties

Cooking Supplies:  The Ronco Donut Maker, A Pro-Grade Beater and Donut “Enter” Oven Mitts And Dish Towels (Donut “Eaters” will notice the rare misprint)

Donut Book:  Glazed America

Vintage Cookbooks And Pamphlets:  Sophia Loren’s Recipes (1998), The Pancake Cookbook (1963), Late Breakfast Or Brunch (1972) and Cooking With A Surprising Difference (1979).

A bottle of honey actually harvested by one of my cousins.  Gotta bee happy about that one.

Thanks everybody for fantastic birthday!