Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Strawberry Cream Muffin Recipe (And My Best Muffin-Making Tip)

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strawberry_muffins_2

You might remember when I posted this recipe three years ago. Now that it is strawberry season again and I am a tiny bit strawberry focused (or sure, we can call it obsessed if you prefer) – I decided to re-post this for you now.

This Strawberry Cream Muffin is so delicious, you’ll feel like you’re eating dessert for breakfast or snack. Take note that the sour cream in these muffins makes all the difference in how moist and delicious these are. Can you use milk or coconut milk (to make them dairy free) instead? Yes. But they will likely turn out just a little bit dry. Just eat them fresh out of the oven and you’re golden.

Strawberry Cream MuffinsYum

Strawberry Cream Muffins
 
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Serves: 12
Ingredients
  • 1¾ cups whole wheat flour (I prefer freshly ground soft white wheat in these)
  • ½ cup sucanat or brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon sea salt
  • ⅓ cup coconut oil or butter, melted
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 1 cup chopped fresh or frozen strawberries
Instructions
  1. Stir together flour, sucanat, baking powder, and salt.
  2. Add oil, egg, and sour cream, mixing well.
  3. Fold in strawberries.
  4. Scoop batter into 12 well greased or paper-lined muffin cups.
  5. Bake in a 375° oven for 18-20 minutes or until lightly browned.

Strawberry Cream Muffin Recipe

Now my best tip of all: Mix up the batter and freeze it to make your muffin baking/dish washing life easier! Then all you have to do is grab your frozen muffin batter cups out of the freezer, put them into muffin cups the night before you want to bake the muffins, then stumble into the kitchen in the morning and put them into the oven!

The Easiest Way to Make Muffins

I’m loving these Silicone Muffin Cups, by the way. I’ve been using them for a few months now and they make freezing muffin batter so easy! Plus I love that I’m saving money on paper liners. Read more details about this simple time and money saving process here.

Have you tried freezing muffin batter? How about silicone cups? Can’t wait to hear how you like the Strawberry Cream Muffins!

P.S. We have not one but two weddings we are heavily involved in this weekend! Starting yesterday, we have been/are running from party to shower to rehearsal to set up to other rehearsal to wedding to getting hair fixed to wedding. If you didn’t follow all of that, don’t worry. I have it all scheduled down the the minute on my calendar. All that to say, you have no idea how happy I was when I found some frozen muffin batter cups in my freezer on Wednesday. I tossed them at my kids to make for their breakfast Saturday. Perfect!

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Easy Low Sugar Orange Melt-Away Cookies

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orange sugar cookies

In case by now you’re wondering if I’m obsessed with creating these Low Sugar Melt-Away Cookie varieties, the answer is obvious that of course I am obsessed. After two attempts at creating this here orange flavored variety, I have definitely decided that of all the flavors – orange is my new favorite.

Why two attempts, you ask? Oh well. I just burned the first batch, that’s all. Guys, it is so weird what happens to cookies when you put them in the oven, walk away, and then forget that there is actual life going on outside your office door. So weird. Someone should have warned me about this. We can’t even leave cookies unattended in a 350° oven for 27 minutes. Did you know that???

Set a timer much, Laura?

You know what? Just…I know, okay? I should have set a timer. I used to have one of those clicky, clicky, clicky timers but it got dropped four too many times so its spinner stopped spinning. Then Matt got me a digital timer that was persnickety and sometimes decided to shut itself off because it was selfish and couldn’t care less about the company coming over to eat in exactly 52 minutes. After a few months of this behavior, I declared it to be faulty and went to the store to purchase another one just like it. It, however, had the same exact issues as its brother and that is what tipped me off that maybe that brand couldn’t be trusted.

After that, I decided I could just use the timer app on my phone. This is a great idea except that it takes so many difficult and tedious steps to get to the point of actually setting the timer (find phone, turn phone on, unlock screen, find timer app, open timer app, think about how much time has elapsed since I started this whole process so I can figure out how long to set the timer at this point, so on and so forth). Also, I really hate to touch my phone when I have egg white on my fingers.

I think you can all see now how challenging it has been to accurately time my baked goods. I have mostly resorted to trusting my nose to be my timer. Typically, cookies and casseroles smell “just right” when they are ready to come out of the oven. What more do I need?

Oh yeah, just someone to remind me that I am actually baking cookies in the first place.

So the first batch burned. They were edible, just really, really crispy and not at all picture worthy. Over the weekend, I tried again. Oh my goodness, I will (go to the trouble to) set a timer from now on. It is worth it to pull the perfect cookies out of the oven when they are perfectly perfect in every way.

Easy Low Sugar Orange Melt-Away Cookies

Easy Low Sugar Orange Melt-Away Cookies
 
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Serves: 24
Ingredients
  • 1 cup melted butter
  • ½ cup sucanat or raw sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • The juice of one medium-sized orange
  • grated orange rind
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 3 cups of whole wheat pastry flour (give or take)
Instructions
  1. Stir together melted butter and sugar.
  2. Add eggs, vanilla, orange juice, and baking powder.
  3. Grate orange rind into the mix for extra flavor.
  4. Stir in flour until a solid ball of dough forms.
  5. Drop teaspoon-sized balls of dough onto a cookie sheet, about an inch apart.
  6. Bake in a 350° oven for 10-12 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.

grate orange rind

In other scatterbrained related news – the second time I made these cookies, I was talking to a friend and didn’t realize until later (like 9 hours later) that I hadn’t put eggs into the mixing bowl. These still turned out to be my favorite cookies. So eggs in this recipe? Take ’em or leave ’em. These turn out fine either way. This is further proof that I can’t talk and cook at the same time. Like you needed more proof.

Low Sugar Orange Melt-Away Cookies

Want to try the other varieties of these cookies?

Hey, just curious. What kind of timer do you use??

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Pyrex Storage Set Deal Alert!!

Christine emailed to tell me of this great deal on a 10-Piece Pyrex Storage Set. Get the entire set right now for just $12.63. No guarantees on how long this price will last. I have these, love them, and use them all the time!!

pyrex

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5-Ingredient Sour Cream Drop Biscuits

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Sour Cream Drop Biscuit

My friend Emily is the one who told me about these Sour Cream Drop Biscuits as we stood in the church foyer solving all the world’s problems and talking about recipes. (The two go hand in hand.) She told me these included only four ingredients and that sour cream was one. “Let me guess then,” I said. “Sour cream, flour, baking powder, and salt?” Yep! With some butter drizzled in for flavor.

Well, yeah. Of course. Butter. Butter drizzled in for flavor, and a large pat of butter melted onto both halves of the biscuit immediately following their removal from the oven.

She promised to send me the recipe, and I was planning to wait patiently. But the next morning, all I could think of was how much I wanted a Sour Cream Biscuit. Surely I could figure out the correct proportions of the ingredients in these biscuits. So I got out the goods and experimented. How hard could it be?

Not hard. (Would I be sharing these with you if they were?)

The trick is that you’re going to need to get your hands messy. The ingredients get tossed in a bowl all together, then you can begin to stir. After a short while, the stirring spoon will likely be thrown into the sink and your hands become your greatest kitchen tool. Mix and squish, friends. Mix and squish.

Since your hands are already messy, use them to pull out bits of dough (whatever size you want your biscuits). Roll the dough in your hands and press the ball down gently onto a baking sheet. This is so much easier than rolling and cutting and cleaning up the mess afterward. I mean, you will have to wash your hands.

5-Ingredient Sour Cream Drop BiscuitsYum

2.0 from 1 reviews
5-Ingredient Sour Cream Drop Biscuits
 
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Serves: 12
Ingredients
  • 3 cups whole wheat flour (I use freshly ground hard white wheat)
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 3 Tablespoons melted butter
  • 2 cups sour cream
Instructions
  1. Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt.
  2. Mix in sour cream and melted butter.
  3. You may need to use your hands to get the ingredients mixed thoroughly.
  4. Roll dough into balls with your hands, then flatten slightly and place them side by side on a baking sheet.
  5. Bake at 450° for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.
  6. Serve with butter, honey, jelly, or gravy.

Please don’t ask if you can sub buttermilk for the sour cream. There are plenty of Buttermilk Biscuit recipes out there. But these are Sour Cream Biscuits, so subbing another dairy or non-dairy item would make them a Not Sour Cream Biscuit.

5 Ingredient Sour Cream Drop Biscuits

Tall and Fluffy Biscuit Tip:

Put your biscuits onto the baking sheet side by side – rubbing shoulders, getting cozy. This way they have no choice but to bake up, not out. See, biscuits need their friends to come along side them to help them grow. This is, of course, a perfect and wonderful analogy to help you and I see our need for friends to come alongside us to build us up. Thank you, Fluffy Biscuit Tip.

Ever tried stirring sour cream into your biscuits?

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Low Sugar Frosted Christmas Cookies

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Some might say that Christmas desserts are treats that should not be messed with. Perhaps whole wheat flour does not belong in a Christmas cookie. Maybe “low sugar” should not be included in a Christmas cookie title. It’s a treat, right? Can’t we just leave it well enough alone?

Sure.

But the more I experiment with cutting down the sweetener in my baked goods, the more I’m discovering that treats still taste like treats even with the sugar cut in half or more.

Low Sugar Frosted Sugar Cookies

 

Wait. I don’t know how to write that. “…with the sugar cut in half or more.” Or should it be “…with the sugar cut in half or less.” I’m talking about cutting out even more than half of the originally called for sugar. Less sugar. Cut it by more than half, so that it’s even less. That is what I’m trying to say. Sometimes writing good sentences is so hard. Who decided that fractions would be smaller every time their bottom number gets bigger? Do you know how hard it is to explain to a small child that 1/8 is bigger than 1/16?? It’s the fraction inventors that are making my sentence writing so complicated right now.

Just for that, I’m not giving the fraction people any of my cookies. They can figure out their own half or more or less sugar fraction in their own cookie recipes. Merry Christmas, fraction people.

Well, there’s no good way to segue after this slightly embarrassing but mostly justified outburst. All any of us really needs to know is that we can cut the sweetener in most baked good recipes and not taste the difference. Truly this sugar cookie is still so sweet I can barely eat it. My kids – who love sugar-covered-sugar just like all the other kids – cannot tell that these cookies are low in sugar. I daresay that if we left these on a plate for Santa, he’d be like, “Wow, these are the best cookies I’ve had all night, but without the sugar crash. This mother must have used half or more (or less) of the sugar called for in the recipe.”

Good ol’ Santa. He totally gets it.

Low Sugar Christmas Cookies (That Don't Taste Low Sugar)Low Sugar Christmas Cookies

Low Sugar Christmas Sugar Cookies
 
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Author:
Serves: 24
Ingredients
  • 1 cup melted butter
  • ½ cup sucanat or raw sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 3½ cups of whole wheat flour (give or take)
Instructions
  1. Stir together melted butter and sugar.
  2. Add eggs, vanilla, and baking powder.
  3. Stir in flour until a solid ball of dough forms.
  4. Cover the bowl and place it in the refrigerator to chill for about an hour.
  5. Roll chilled dough on a well-floured surface and thin or thick as you like.
  6. Cut with cookie cutters and place them about a half inch apart on a baking sheet.
  7. Bake in a 350° oven for about 12 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.
  8. Makes 20-30 cookies depending on the thickness and size.

If you’d like to frost your cookies but keep them low sugar, I recommend this stevia sweetened frosting.

Stevia Sweetened Cream Cheese FrostingYum

8 ounces softened cream cheese
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Liquid stevia to taste (I use 2 droppers full)

Whip ingredients together until smooth. Frost cookies just before serving.

This frosting is not like regular powdered sugar icing. It’s delicious on these cookies, but does not harden or hold up well for the long term. I recommend only frosting a few cookies at a time, as needed. I use the term “as needed” loosely because we are talking about cookies here. Although these are low in sugar so the half or more or less sugar fraction does the lessen the guilt.

Take that, fraction people.

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Stir-and-Pour Dinner Rolls ~ Freezer Edition

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stir and pour rolls 1

Guess what? 

One of my darling readers, Vicki, experimented with the Stir-and-Pour Dinner Rolls to see if we could make them even more convenient by making them ahead and freezing the dough. I won’t keep you in suspense!!! —–>

Okay, maybe just for a little bit.

I’m wearing a new sweater today. I got it on sale, of course. I got it the same day I got all the butter on sale. That was a great day for sales, no doubt. I sure do love good sales. And butter.

So how about those dinner rolls? Does it work to make and freeze the dough, just like we make and freeze muffin batter? Vicki tried it. She reported back. Drum roll please…

It worked!! This is great news, and much more relevant than pointless talk about my new sweater. Although the sweater led me back to talking about butter; and butter and rolls go together. Therefore everything I’m writing today makes sense and is on topic.

You must be wondering, is there even a way to make this very easy recipe even more convenient? I mean, how can it get easier than the Stir-and-Pour Bread and Stir-and-Pour Dinner Rolls recipes? But actually, it does. It gets easier. Vicki proved it.

Make and Freeze Stir-and-Pour Dinner Rolls

1. Mix the ingredients as normal.
2. Scoop batter into muffin pans. I super love my new silicone baking cups. I use them alllll the time.
3. Freeze dough immediately.
4. Remove frozen dough from muffin cups and transfer them to a freezer bag. Store in the freezer for up to three months.
5. To bake: Place frozen dough into muffin cups. Cover with a cloth. Thaw on the countertop for 4-6 hours.
6. Bake as directed.

Vicki said that these taste just as good prepared this way as they do when prepared fresh. I mean, these are still fresh. They’re just frozen first before baking them. I love this time-saving tip!

This is especially helpful for days such as…I don’t know…Thanksgiving maybe? That day we’re putting forty-seven ~ give or take ~ other dishes on the table all at the same time? If there is a way to dirty up fewer dishes and execute fewer food preparation steps, by all means, let us do it!
Yum

5.0 from 1 reviews
Stir-and-Pour Dinner Rolls ~ Freezer Edition
 
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Author:
Ingredients
  • 4 cups whole wheat flour (I use freshly ground hard white wheat)
  • 2 teaspoons active rise yeast
  • 2 Tablespoons sucanat or sugar or honey
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 egg (optional)
  • ¼ cup heavy cream (optional)
  • 2 cups warm water
Instructions
  1. Stir all ingredients together.
  2. Cover and allow it to sit for 30 minutes.
  3. Pour contents into buttered muffin tins or silicone muffin cups.
  4. Place filled muffin cups in freezer immediately.
  5. Once frozen, transfer frozen dough to freezer bags, storing for up to three months.
  6. To Bake:
  7. Place frozen dough back in prepared muffin cups.
  8. Cover and allow dough to thaw 4-6 hours on the counter-top.
  9. Bake in a 350° for 20-25 minutes or until lightly browned.
  10. Serve right away.

Make and Freeze Stir-and-Pour Dinner Rolls

Vicki said she used the leftover rolls to make Stuffing Muffins. I did the exact same thing a few days ago!

Let’s hear it for another great make-ahead tip!

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Whole Wheat Stir-and-Pour Dinner Rolls

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stir and pour rolls 1

The Stir-and-Pour Bread just keeps growing in all its amazing opportunities for easy baking.

First, we figured out that the concept of stirring together ingredients and pouring them into pans to make bread really does work.

Next, we experimented and learned that the recipe actually made a delicious variety of sandwich bread. We vowed to never knead dough again. (Well, not all of us vowed that. Maybe I’m the only one who vowed that. I guarantee that my kneading knowledge will be used less and less frequently from now on.)

Now, I am excited to share that by simply scooping the Stir-and-Pour dough into muffin cups, we can make dinner rolls!

Before

stir and pour rolls6

After

stir and pour rolls7

Voila

stir and pour rolls5

What did we ever do without this recipe?

Stir-and-Pour Dinner Rolls

Yum

4.8 from 6 reviews
Whole Wheat Stir-and-Pour Dinner Rolls
 
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Author:
Serves: 20
Ingredients
  • 4 cups whole wheat flour (I use freshly ground hard white wheat)
  • 2 teaspoons active rise yeast
  • 2 Tablespoons sucanat or sugar or honey
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 egg (optional)
  • ¼ cup heavy cream (optional)
  • 2 cups warm water
Instructions
  1. Stir all ingredients together.
  2. Cover and allow it to sit for 30 minutes.
  3. Pour contents into buttered muffin tins or silicone muffin cups.
  4. Bake in a 350° for 20-25 minutes or until lightly browned.
  5. Serve right away.

Can it get any easier?

Stir-and-Pour Dinner Roll Quick Tips

  • These Stir-and-Pour Dinner Rolls taste best fresh, right out of the oven. That means that while just about everything else on my holiday table will be made ahead of time and reheated while I put these rolls together about an hour before meal time.
  • Mix the dry ingredients the day before and set them aside for easy mixing as you prepare the rest of the meal.
  • A few hours before your meal, place a stick of butter on a plate to soften to serve with your rolls. You must butter these. It is a requirement.
  • The recipe makes 18-24 rolls, depending on how much dough you scoop into each muffin cup.

Whole Wheat Stir-and-Pour Dinner Rolls

If you’re interested in another real food dinner roll that I really love, you may want to check out these Whole Wheat Butterhorns. They do require kneading, but you can make them ahead and pull them out to bake right before meal time. Easy! You might also want to check out my No-Knead One Hour Dinner Rolls recipe. They are almost (but not quite) as easy as this Stir-and-Pour recipe. So many great options!

Other recipes in this series so far:

Getting Ahead for the Holidays

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Simple Meals is here! It’s saving my brain (and many of yours too!). If you haven’t joined yet, now’s the time. Get all the details here!

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{Low Sugar} Lemon Melt-Away Cookies

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I’m almost embarrassed to admit to you how many batches of Easy {Low Sugar} Cookies our family has eaten since I posted the recipe in September. We all declare these to be the best “why would we ever need more sugar in these cookies” cookies. They are incredibly delicious just as they are. I make them often. You should too.

Easy {Low Sugar} Cookies

Low Sugar Lemon Melt-away Cookies

Yum

I’ve long since stopped rolling and cutting when I make those cookies. After all – if life is too short to knead bread dough, it’s certainly too short to get out a rolling pin and cookie cutters. (Although I will be rolling and cutting for the holidays because there are laws enforcing the making of cookies into the shape of trees and stars and candy canes at Christmastime.) Instead of rolling and cutting in the non-holiday season though, I’ve been either freezing and slicing or simply dropping and squooshing (as detailed below).

Every time during the past few weeks I’ve made the drop and squoosh sugar cookies, Malachi walks by and says, “Man, I always think these are some kind of lemon cookies. Mom, you should make these into lemon cookies.”

Either my kids are related to me, or they just naturally get inspired with, “great recipe. now let’s tweak it.” Some of my best recipe ideas come from the brains of my boys. Need I remind you of the Pineapple Fluff Salad? Or the 5-Minute Stove-Top Granola? Now, allow me to introduce you to {Low Sugar} Lemon Melt-Away Cookies.

Lemon Melt-Away Cookies

I simply added 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice to my Easy {Low Sugar} Cookies recipe and voila: {Low Sugar} Lemon Melt-Away Cookies. If we loved the regular version, we love the lemon version even more. I used the drop and squoosh technique, which is the method all the professionals use. To squoosh is a real thing. I definitely did not make up the term five minutes ago. All the famous chefs squoosh. Squooshing is a well-known culinary term just like saute, dredge, and braise. (Though it might be used more often by cooks who say “slap it down into a pan,” “toss in a little of that,” and “throw it down on the table.” Still. Professional.)

Simply put, to squoosh is to press down lightly on a ball of cookie dough with the bottom of a drinking glass. Dip the glass into a small amount of sugar if necessary to keep it from sticking. Drop a scoopful of dough, squoosh it down with the bottom of a glass. Drop, squoosh, drop, squoosh. Or, to be more efficient: drop, drop, drop, drop, drop (x24) – squoosh, squoosh, squoosh, squoosh (and so on).

It looks something like this:

squoosh

It must please you so much to be taught these professional terms so that you can impress everyone around you as you cook and bake. “What are you doing?” a friend will ask. “Oh, I’m just squooshing my cookies,” you’ll reply. Then your friend will nod in quiet appreciation at both your skill and your knowledge. They will also enjoy eating your cookies.

Now I shall give you the Low Sugar Lemon Melt-Away Cookie recipe that will have you squooshing in no time.

{Low Sugar} Lemon Melt-Away Cookies
 
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Author:
Serves: 24-30
Ingredients
  • 1 cup melted butter
  • ½ cup sucanat or raw sugar
  • 2 Tablespoons lemon juice
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 3 cups of whole wheat pastry flour (give or take)
Instructions
  1. Stir together melted butter and sugar.
  2. Add lemon juice, eggs, vanilla, and baking powder.
  3. Stir in flour until a solid ball of dough forms.
  4. Drop teaspoon-sized balls of dough onto a cookie sheet, about an inch apart.
  5. Squoosh the dough down gently with the bottom of a glass.
  6. Bake in a 350° oven for 10-12 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.

Low Sugar Lemon Melt-Away Cookies ~ Easy!

It’s time to start squooshing, friends. Is this a skill you’ve already mastered, or is this one a new one for you? Let the squooshing begin.

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Whole Wheat Stir-and-Pour Sandwich Bread. YES, it works!

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stir and pour bread loaf 4

Yum

If you haven’t tried this Whole Wheat Stir-and-Pour Bread yet, I’m here to give you more reasons to make it.

First, you make it exactly like the title implies: You stir the ingredients together, then your pour them into a pan to bake. It is easier than making brownies from a box and it is HOMEMADE BREAD. It makes amazing bread without a mess, without kneading, and without blocking out a four-hour period of time. I am so amazed at this!

Second, it only costs about $1.00 – for 100% whole grain bread with totally pure ingredients. Third, it’s homemade bread, which is obviously delicious so you should need no other reasons to make this, but I’ll give you some anyway. Fourth, anyone can make it. Anyone. Even me, while I’m having a conversation with someone. I know!

Last weekend we had company. We all know I can’t talk and cook at the same time. I always have to either pick very easy meals to make for guests, or make most of the food ahead of time. Otherwise my talker and my thinker blow up all over the kitchen which results in burnt muffins, which doesn’t even matter because I have forgotten to put baking powder in them anyway.

But last weekend, I made this Whole Wheat Stir-and-Pour Bread while having a conversation with my guests that actually made sense. This is monumental.

I’m not sure which is more impressive about this bread recipe:

  • A three year old can make it.
  • Laura can make it while talking to guests in her kitchen.

Here, because you need to see this again (click here if this video doesn’t show up for you):

Not to take away from the three year old Cooking Guy, but you really must be impressed with this: Laura can make this bread at the very same time that she is telling a story to her out-of-town guests. You know this is a big deal.

Now, reason number 5 why you should make Whole Wheat Stir-and-Pour Bread and the actual reason I am writing this post:

This recipe makes a great Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread.

After I posted the recipe a couple weeks ago, many of you asked if it could be made into a bigger loaf for sandwiches. I decided to be nice and try it out. After all, I knew that if it didn’t work, I’d only be out about ten minutes of work time and I could use the results to make bread crumbs.

stir and pour bread loaf 5

It works, it works, it works! This recipe makes an amazing loaf of sandwich bread! You are going to love this!

stir and pour sandwich 3

Pssst!

Your interest in this recipe leads me to believe you like to keep things simple. Oh my stars, you and me both. The simpler the better! Though I don’t like to compromise on nutrition. (Another great thing about this bread recipe!)

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To go with this bread, I invite you to join us in enjoying Simple Meals week after week. It saves us all time, money, and energy so we can enjoy nourishing, delicious meals without sacrificing time with family!

Now, back to the bread…

Some tips I’ve learned about varieties of Whole Wheat Stir-and-Pour Bread

  • You can pour it onto a cookie sheet to bake, which takes a very short time since it is all spread out. (Details here.)
  • You can pour it into two loaf pans to make small loaves. (Details here.)
  • Or, you can pour it all into one buttered loaf pan to make one large sandwich loaf. (Love this, love this, love this!! Details below.)

How to make the best Stir-and-Pour Sandwich Bread

  • Butter your loaf pan well before pouring in the bread mixture.
  • Bake it at 350° for 50-60 minutes.
  • Let it sit in the loaf pan for about 15 minutes after it comes out of the oven.
  • Remove it from the pan after 15 minutes.
  • Allow it to cool completely before slicing.

All of us love bread right out of the oven, right? I kept trying to slice this bread right away, which resulted in a very messy loaf. Delicious, but messy.

When I let it cool before slicing, this bread becomes magic. It slices like magic. It tastes even better (I’m not sure how). And then it works wonderfully for sandwiches.

stir and pour sandwich 12

As much as I love my old recipe for Honey Whole Wheat Bread, I will probably never make it again. Why would I, when the Stir-and-Pour Bread is just as delicious and forty times easier and faster? And it works better for sandwiches! Please try making this bread. I’ve said it before and I will say it again: this bread will change your life.

Easy Stir and Pour Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

I originally posted this recipe here, and I encourage you to read through it for more specifics. But I will post the recipe again with the details of making it into one sandwich loaf. This is my way of saying: GO MAKE THIS BREAD! ALL OF YOU! ANYONE CAN DO THIS!

4.7 from 20 reviews
Whole Wheat Stir-and-Pour Sandwich Bread
 
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Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
Author:
Serves: 1 loaf
Ingredients
  • 4 cups whole wheat flour (I use freshly ground hard white wheat)
  • 2 teaspoons active rise yeast
  • 2 Tablespoons sucanat or sugar or honey
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 egg (optional)
  • ¼ cup heavy cream (optional)
  • 2 cups warm water
Instructions
  1. Stir all ingredients together.
  2. Cover and allow it to sit for 30 minutes.
  3. Pour contents into a well-buttered loaf pan.
  4. Bake in a 350° for 50-60 minutes or until evenly browned.
  5. Allow it to sit in the pan for 15 minutes.
  6. Remove the loaf to let it cool completely before slicing.

Tell me if you’ve made this recipe already! Love it?? Go get out your mixing bowls. Your life is about to change.

Don’t forget to check out Simple Meals. You are going to love this!

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Garlic Cheese Biscuits (Like Red Lobster’s) – the Real Food Way

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I used to go out to eat at restaurants just because of the baskets of bread they kept bringing to the table. Red Lobster Garlic Cheese Biscuits? Oh my, yes. But who am I kidding? I really used to go out to eat at restaurants for the unlimited Pepsi refills. Holy sugar crash, Batman.

Garlic Cheese Biscuits

I’m now in the stage of life where I recognize the value of nourishment and moderation, plus if I tried to eat more than one biscuit now my body’d be like, “What are you thinking, girl?” Ah….the 40’s.

We recently treated our boys to their first Red Lobster experience (and by we treated I mean someone gave us a gift certificate). They loved the biscuits in the basket – of course – which reminded me that I know how to make them the healthy way.

Therefore, we grilled chicken and steak a few days ago, prepped some veggies, and baked some of these biscuits. This led to me making them again a few days later and then again a few days after that. Yes, the boys like them because they are amazing (my boys, and also my biscuits).

Garlic Cheese BiscuitsYum

Garlic Cheese Biscuits (Like Red Lobster's) - the Real Food Way
 
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Author:
Serves: 12
Ingredients
  • 2½ cups whole wheat pastry flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon sea salt
  • 2 teaspoons garlic powder (divided)
  • 1 Tablespoon sucanat
  • ⅓ cup palm shortening
  • 1 cup shredded cheddar or Colby jack cheese
  • ¾ cup milk
  • ¼ cup butter
Instructions
  1. Stir together flour, baking powder, salt, 1 teaspoon garlic powder, and sucanat.
  2. Cut in palm shortening until the mixture resembles crumbs.
  3. Fold in shredded cheese.
  4. Stir in milk until well combined.
  5. Spoon batter in Tablespoon-sized heaps onto a baking sheet.
  6. Bake in a 400° oven for 12-18 minutes or until they are golden brown.
  7. While they are baking, melt butter on the stove and stir in remaining teaspoon of garlic powder. Brush garlic butter over hot biscuits and serve immediately.

Garlic Cheese Biscuits - the real food way

With soup weather being right around the corner, I suggest you keep this recipe front and center. Soup with Garlic Cheese Biscuits is a wonderful combo.

Want a gluten free version of this recipe? This one is similar, though you’ll want to switch the onion powder for garlic powder.

How do you handle bread basket refills at restaurants? Or should I ask, how does your body handle it? 

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Sugar Cookies ~ the Whole Wheat, Low Sugar, Super Delicious Way

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Easy (Low) Sugar Cookies

I tinkered with my old sugar cookie recipe and cut the sugar from 1 1/2 cups down to just 1/2 cup. I personally think it could be cut even more, but that’s because I am weird about sweetness levels now. I’m the one who thinks coffee is sweet when it has only cream stirred into it. It looks so creamy delicious, and I say things like “mmm it is so sweet and good” while I’m sipping it, so my people keep trying it thinking that maybe this time I really mean it. I mean, I do mean it – why would I lie? It’s sweet. But then they take a sip and they make faces and say, “Eww that is so not sweet, what are you even talking about?” This is how I never have to share my coffee.

Now sharing these cookies is a different story. Everyone loves these lightly sweetened jewels. The butter makes them flaky good. This will be my new go-to sugar cookie recipe at all holidays, special events, and uneventful Wednesdays when the mood strikes.

Note about the sugar: Most of the time I use sucanat because it is sugar with some nutrients left behind. For occasional recipes when I’d like to avoid the product turning out too dark brown, I pull out some organic raw sugar. It’s only barely better than white sugar, but we’re going light on the sugar here so I don’t throw a fit about this.

 

Sugar Cookies the Healthier WayYum

4.0 from 1 reviews
Sugar Cookies ~ the Whole Wheat, Low Sugar, Super Delicious Way
 
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Author:
Serves: 20-30
Ingredients
  • 1 cup melted butter
  • ½ cup sucanat or raw sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 3½ cups of whole wheat flour (give or take)
Instructions
  1. Stir together melted butter and sugar.
  2. Add eggs, vanilla, and baking powder.
  3. Stir in flour until a solid ball of dough forms.
  4. Cover the bowl and place it in the refrigerator to chill for about an hour.
  5. Roll chilled dough on a well-floured surface and thin or thick as you like.
  6. Cut with cookie cutters and place them about a half inch apart on a baking sheet.
  7. Bake in a 350° oven for about 12 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.
  8. Makes 20-30 cookies depending on the thickness and size.

 

sugar cookies 4

Notice the little round piece of squished circle dough, ready to be baked along with the pumpkin-shaped cookies. It is a part of the “No Cookie Left Behind” program. It’s what you do when your remaining dough isn’t big enough to shape.

Frost these cookies if you like, but then they fall out of the Low Sugar category. We find these to be perfect as they are, and some of us love to eat them with our coffee that is sweetened only with cream.

It’s almost cookie rolling, cutting, and baking season – so I can’t wait to hear what you think about these! (We’re on our third batch already. I may have failed to mention to my kids that I cut down the sugar in this recipe. Do not tell.)

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