"QuickBreads" news and stories

Since the colder weather finally settled in, I've been making at least one pot of soup or stew a week. However, I often feel like a bowl of steaming, brothy goodness isn't complete without a bit of bread or a couple of crackers to go along with it. Some weeks I buy a multi-grain baguette at the farmers market but sometimes I like to make my own rolls or biscuits.

I've had my eyes open for new quick bread options lately and there are two that struck my fancy today. I haven't actually made either yet, but I've printed out both recipes and they are destined for the "Must Make" stack in my kitchen. The first is the recipe for Jalapeno Whole Wheat Scones from from A Smart Mouth. I don't have all those exotic flours on hand, but I've been looking for an excuse to buy buckwheat flour and this may be reason enough. The other is the recipe for Cornmeal and Bacon Muffins that Erin (of Erin Cooks!) made over the weekend. She says she wasn't quite happy with the texture of these, but I find that the drier, crumbly breads go quite nicely with soup, so these might still be salvageable yet.

Brioche is nice and baguettes are lovely, but some meals just won't work without a piping hot, fresh biscuit on the side of the plate. An American biscuit, as opposed to the British cookie-type of biscuit, is a light, tender quick bread that can be sweet or savory. Biscuit Bliss: 101 Foolproof Recipes for Fresh and Fluffy Biscuits in Just Minutes is a cookbook that delivers nothing but biscuits, along with a comprehensive guide to biscuit-making that ensures you'll have perfect results to serve alongside your morning coffee or with a meat-and-potatoes dinner. One thing that it emphasizes up front is the importance of selecting the proper ingredients for biscuit-making, including fats, leavenings and flours. Recipes include classic buttermilk biscuits, sweet potato biscuits and a wide variety of scones.

If you need any more convincing, let me quote one of the Amazon reviewers, who said, "Why would I go out to buy a whole book, even if it's a fairly small book, just on something so simple as how to make biscuits? Because I've never been happy with the biscuits that I've made. The ones made by my grandmother...are so much better than the ones I've been able to make.... I haven't tried all 101 'foolproof' recipes in the book. But I think that this morning's batch is the best I've made yet."

Source

My refrigerator is always full of buttermilk. You see, I'm a thrifty soul, and if I need buttermilk for a recipe I can't bear to buy the pint-sized cartons. Did you even see the price per fluid ounce? No, I must go for the economical two-quart-sized container. Thing is: there is no recipe on the whole earth that calls for a half gallon of buttermilk.* Instead, I measure out 1/2 cup or five tablespoons or some other amazingly tiny quantity. And then, every time I pick up a recipe, I think, how can I use buttermilk in this?

So when I was looking for a recipe for scones the other day, I was terrifically happy to find this one on Nicole's blog. I made it, with great success, and then started scheming. How could I use even more of the ingredients slowly turning from "non-perishable" to "perished" in my pantry shelves? I emailed Nicole, I rummaged to find white chocolate chips and dried blueberries and I made these fantastic drop scones. [click through for recipe]

*portions of this post may be highly exaggerated.