Cooking and Baking Archives - Hopeful Homemaker

Cinnamon Focaccia Sourdough Bread

October 3, 2024 jennifer Breads and Rolls

I get to gather with my family this weekend, and I am so excited to spend time with them. We’re pausing the busy-ness of life to be together and listen to General Conference, and it’s like we have an extra holiday weekend. I love this time so much, and food is always an important part of gathering a large family! For almost 18 months now I’ve been baking all our bread. Baking sourdough is a huge part of that, and the rhythm of this practice has been so good for me. Today I’m sharing with you my recipe for cinnamon focaccia sourdough bread.

It’s delicious and chewy and my new favorite cinnamon roll style treat. In fact, I don’t want to make cinnamon rolls anymore after making this! It’s SO fast and SO simple, and also has much less sugar. Plus you get the health benefits of sourdough. Yum.

All you need is a sourdough starter, plus water, flour, salt, butter, sugar and cinnamon. I also like to mix up a simple glaze using powdered sugar, milk and vanilla to drizzle over the top. My sister asked me for this recipe last week, and I couldn’t find it until late at night I remembered where I’d written it down. So now I’m putting it here, where it can always be found! I hope you’ll enjoy it. We surely do!

Cinnamon focaccia sourdough bread

100 g active sourdough starter

440 g water

1 tsp salt

515 g all purpose flour

stick of melted butter (but I cut that in half)

1.5 Tb cinnamon

4 Tb sugar

Mix flour and salt in one bowl, then mix water and starter in a second bowl until starter is somewhat dissolved. Pour into flour mixture. Mix together. This is a wet dough.

After about 15 minutes, do one stretch and fold of the dough. It will be very wet, and that’s fine. Cover with a damp cloth and let the dough rise overnight (or all day). I typically let mine rise on my kitchen counter, but you will need to decide what to do in your climate/kitchen.

Butter a deep 9 x 9 or similar sized baking pan (I use a deep dish 7 x 11 pan) and pour dough into it.

Melt butter and mix cinnamon and sugar into it. Drizzle over dough. Wash hands and poke holes all through the dough.

Bake at 425 for 30-35 minutes. Let cool for a few minutes and remove loaf from pan. Top with glaze (powdered sugar, milk or cream, and vanilla).

Chocolate Chip Smores Bars Recipe

July 2, 2024 jennifer Cooking and Baking

Instead of quilts, today I’m sharing one of our favorite summer desserts. It’s also one of the easiest. My daughter and I started making them last summer, and we take them to potlucks all season long. It’s the first pan to empty every time! These chocolate chip smores bars are perfect for a summer night when everyone would love smores but there’s no fire.

And they’re the perfect amount of gooey, with the toasted marshmallow, melted chocolate, and cookie dough, plus the crunch of a graham cracker on the bottom. Fun, and easy to make, these chocolate chip smores bars will be a hit!

To make these bars, you will need:

1 box graham crackers

1 bag large marshmallows

1 large symphony chocolate bar (the giant size)

ingredients for your favorite chocolate chip cookie dough, or see below for the recipe I use. (scroll to bottom of post for full recipe)

Start by spraying the bottom of an 11 x 17 inch cookie sheet with nonstick spray. Then break your graham crackers into halves and cover the bottom of the pan. Break the chocolate into pieces and place one on every cracker.

Using a pair of scissors, cut each marshmallow in half. If you don’t do this, they tip over and don’t stay in place! Place the two halves cut side down on top of the chocolate and crackers.

Mix up a batch of cookie dough, and then with your hands just drop little pieces of it all over the pan.

Then you bake it and the magic happens. When it’s golden brown, and the marshmallows are melted and toasty on top, pull it out of the oven.

Allow to cool completely before cutting into bars. Serve and enjoy! Now, please excuse me while I go make some.

Chocolate Chip Smores Bars Recipe

Ingredients:

1 box graham crackers

1 bag large marshmallows

I giant sized Symphony bar (or you can use several of the small Hershey’s chocolate bars, but they don’t melt as well.)

for the cookie dough:

1 cup butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 tsp baking soda

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2.5 cups flour

12 oz chocolate chips

Instructions:

Soften butter, then beat in large mixing bowl until creamy. Add sugar, brown sugar and baking soda. Beat till combined. Add eggs and vanilla and beat till combined. Add flour and mix until combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

Assembly:

Spray large 11 x 17 baking baking pan with nonstick spray. Break graham crackers in half and cover bottom of pan. Break chocolate and place 1-2 pieces on each cracker. Cut 1 marshmallow in half for each graham cracker half, and place cut side down on top of chocolate and crackers.

With your hands, gently place small handfuls or chunks of cookie dough all around the pan on top of and in between marshmallows.

Bake at 375 for 10-12 minutes, watching for the dough and marshmallows to begin turning golden brown on top.

Remove from oven, cool completely, cut and serve!

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Blackberry Pie Recipe

February 28, 2023 jennifer Cooking and Baking, Desserts

I did not expect to love this blackberry pie recipe so much. Maybe it’s the time of year, or perhaps it’s because I really needed to bake something beautiful. Regardless, we all enjoyed it. I learned recently that Abraham Lincoln served blackberry pie at his first inaugural luncheon, and I’m sure that’s what planted it in my head. So when I saw delicious looking blackberries at the store on a snowy February day, I did what any sensible person would, and bought some.

Now we have a new favorite pie recipe that I’ll probably make every February. Yum! More than that, I feel like if I’m doing things at home to celebrate and discuss holidays like President’s Day and Martin Luther King Day, then my kids will be more likely to appreciate the “why” of these important days. Baking this blackberry pie created an opportunity for good discussions about what these men have contributed to our country, and how we can honor them as citizens today. I want these holidays to be more than just a day off school for them. And of course, it helps that everyone loved the pie so much. (My oldest son came to wake me up and thank me for it when he got home from work and tried it.) So, now I’m sharing it with you!

I’m going to share my recipe, with a couple of thoughts. I used instant tapioca in mine to thicken the filling but you could substitute corn starch. Also, I increased the berries because my favorite pie dish is my Emile Henry ruffled 10″ ceramic dish and I wanted more filling. For a regular pie dish, only 4 cups of berries should suffice.

Blackberry Pie Recipe 5 cups fresh blackberries, rinsed 1 cup sugar 1/3 cup instant tapioca 1/4 tsp salt 1/4 cup water 1 tsp lemon juice 2 Tb butter Dough for double pie crust 1 egg Cinnamon sugar or sugar crystals In medium saucepan, combine the sugar, tapioca, and salt. Add 1 cup blackberries, 1/4 cup water, and lemon juice, then mix gently. Cook and stir over medium heat until the berries burst and the mixture is gently boiling. Remove the pan from the heat and gently stir in remaining berries.

Roll out one pie crust to 1/8″ thickness and gently place in pie pan. Spoon berry mixture into pie crust and dot with the butter.

Roll the second pie crust to 1/8″ thickness. Using cookie cutters or a knife, cut stars of various sizes and place them over the berry mixture until it is covered. I started with larger stars, then medium, and used the smallest stars to cover tiny holes at the end.

Beat the egg in a small bowl, and brush over the pie crust gently. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar or sugar crystals.

Bake at 400 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until crust is golden brown and the filling is bubbly. Cool on a wire rack, and serve with ice cream or whipping cream. It is delicious warm or cold!

(recipe adapted from Taste of Home) I hope you enjoy this blackberry pie! Happy baking!