Pumpkin Bread

 Pumpkin grew well in Grandpa’s garden and so we find ourselves with freezer full of pumpkin and today's recipe Pumpkin Bread.  This is an old family recipe and so good.

Ingredients

31/2 cups flour

2 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. soda

Pinch salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. cloves

4 eggs (lightly beaten)

2  cups sugar

2 cups pumpkin

½ cup oil

2/3 cup water

2/3 cups walnuts

Directions:

Sift together the first six ingredients

Beat eggs, sugar, pumpkin, water, and oil

Make a well in centre of the dry ingredients and add liquid all at once

Mix only enough to moisten the batter (don’t over mix)

Mix in walnuts

Pour into 2 greased 9x5 loaf pans

Bake one hour at 350F until an inserted comes out clean

The loaf tastes best if you wrap and allow the bread to sit for 24 hours before serving.

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2018 twosnydergirls

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English Muffins

Keeping a loaf of bread fresh can be a difficult process when there are only one or two people in a household and even more difficult when you camp as Grandpa Snyder and I do.

This past September we spent three weeks travelling to Saskatchewan for a family wedding and on this trip we learn to enjoy English muffins in place of sliced bread.  We found English muffins easier to keep fresh while we were travelling and just as satisfying when you make a sandwich.  And nothing matches the very enjoyable that unique taste of a toasted English muffin with melted butter and slathered in honey or jam. 

There is nothing quite so satisfying as the crunch of a toasted English muffin.

Baking bread is a skill we planned on revisiting when we retire so once back home we set about deciding whether English muffins were something that we could make ourselves and more importantly something that we could make while we camping. 

The answer is yes and yes.

For a recipe we searched the internet and landed on a recipe from allrecipes.com.  The recipe is easy to follow, fool proof and results in a delicious English muffin.

English Muffin Recipe

This recipe calls for the skillet to be greased prior to cooking the English muffins and we were not happy with the result.  It resulted in a was a dark somewhat soggy outs outer crust. 

Once again we went back to the internet where we found the dry fry method and this provided the results that we were looking for.   Here you heat the skillet to a medium heat and fry the English muffins until there is an internal heat of 194F.

We froze the English muffins in packages of six and freezer for up to three months without any loss in favour.  Again we toast are our English muffins so freezing them does not have an adverse effect on the end result.

We learned through our research that the correct way to open an English muffin is to use a fork inserting it around the outside of the English muffin and pull it apart.

We hope you will try this making your own English muffins.

From our table to yours

Grandma Snyder

2013-2017 twosnydergirls

German Rye

Never underestimate what a treasure trove an old wooden box stuffed full of handwritten recipes can be.  Today's recipe comes from that wooden box and we reproduced the recipe exactly.  

The recipe is a little too sweet for our tastes and the loaves too small.  Next time we make this recipe we will eliminate  1 tablespoon of sugar and reduce the molasses to ¼ cup and we will also make one larger loaf.

We would encourage you make the bread as the recipe states and then alter to your tastes.

German Rye

Ingredients:

• 2 cups rye flour
• 1 tablespoon cocoa
• 2 cakes yeast
• ½ teaspoon sugar
• 1 ½ cups warm water
• ½ cup molasses
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon caraway seed
• 2 tablespoons margarine
• 2 ½ cups whole wheat flour

Directions:

1. Combine rye flour, cocoa and 1 tablespoon sugar
2. Dissolve yeast, ½ teaspoon of sugar in ½ cup warm water.  Let stand 10 minutes.
3. Combine molasses, 1 cup war water, 2 tablespoons margarine, salt, caraway seeds in a large bowl.
4. Add rye flour and cocoa mixture to yeast.  Stir in one cup of whole wheat flour
5. Beat with a wooden spoon until smooth.
6. Add remaining flour, kneed dough for six to eight minutes.
7. Place in a well greased bowl and lightly butter the top and sides of the dough.
8. Cover with a towel and place in a warm place and let rise for 40 minutes.
9. Punch down dough to remove air bubbles.
10. Turn out on a lightly floured board and form two round loaves.
11. Place on a greased cookie sheet, sprinkle with corn meal and allow to rise for a further 40 minutes.
12. Bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes.

From Our Table to Yours

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2017 twosnydergirls

30 minute Cinnamon Buns

We have a microwave, convection oven in our new travel trailer and it has expanded our menu options 100 fold.  As many of you know we have been tenting for the past number of years and while we enjoy tent camping we did not enjoy those late night, early morning walks to the bathrooms, so in search of a small trailer we went and the Rpod 171 is where landed. 

In Grandpa’s travels he happened upon a couple our age with an Rpod, they told him about a great Rpod group on Facebook and this is where we came upon the Cinnamon Bun challenge.  It is really simple make cinnamon buns in your trailer and post a picture and today’s recipe was our contribution.

Everything ready to go

For years we have made cheater cinnamon buns using Pillsbury Crescent Rolls and for camping we changed up our recipe to include vanilla Greek yogurt for the glaze, thus there is no need to carry vanilla with you.

Butter and brown sugar ready to melt

We pre-measured all of our dry ingredients placed them in bags and the bags inside the dish we would make the cinnamon buns in wrapped in plastic wrap to keep it all together.  In the refrigerator we kept the crescent rolls, butter and yogurt.

Crescent rolls ready for brown sugar and cinnamon

Here is a tip from our tent camping roll everything out on two long pieces of plastic wrap, roll up the buns and the final clean up is easy – we timed it at 30 minutes from the moment we started to sitting with hot cinnamon buns to eat. 

Ingredients

• 1 can Pillsbury Crescent Rolls
• 2/3 cup soften butter divided
• 1/2 cup brown sugar 
• 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
• 1/4 cup flour

Glaze

• 2/3 cup powdered sugar
• 3 tablespoons vanilla Greek yogurt
• 1 tablespoon butter

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. In the bottom of a glass pie plate melt half the butter and add 1/2 the brown sugar.
3. Unroll the crescent rolls onto a lightly floured surface and pat all open seams closed
4. spread 1/2 brown sugar and cinnamon on the surface of the dough
5. roll the dough into a tight log from the short end
6. cut the log into 6 to 8 cinnamon rolls 
7. Place in the glass pie plate 
8. Bake for 20 minutes 
9. While the dough is baking make the glaze
10. mix together the sugar, yogurt and melted butter
11. Once the cinnamon buns are baked glaze and serve warm

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2017 twosnydergirls

Apple Cake

October in Ontario means fresh crisp apples are everywhere.  For sale in markets, at pick your own orchards and for really adventurous along roadsides where there is an abundance of wild apple trees.

This week’s recipe is a remake of the family Applesauce Cake.  We are giving credit to all sides of the family because when we were looking through the many handwritten recipe books we have inherited over the years everyone includes an Applesauce Cake.

We have substituted chopped apple for raisins, ginger for cloves and reduced the sugar we have name our cake simply Apple Cake.

Ingredients:

• ½ shortening
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 ½ cups applesauce
• 2 ½ cups flour
• Pinch salt
• 1 teaspoon soda dissolved in 2 tablespoons hot water
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ginger
• 2 medium tart apples cored, peeled and chopped – you decided how small or large we chopped them into ½ wedges approximately

Directions:

1. Cream shortening and sugar together
2. Beat the two eggs and add to shortening
3. Sift all dry ingredients together including spices
4. Alternate adding the applesauce and dry ingredients to the shortening mix well
5. Add soda and water to batter
6. Add apple pieces
7. Pour into a greased cake pan
8. Bake at 350 F for one hour or until a toothpick comes out clean

From Our Table to Yours

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2016 twosnydergirls

Ham and Cauliflower Casserole

Leftovers what to do with them?  

Put them in the freezer and too soon they are taking over, and that is something Grandpa Snyder just cannot tolerate.  

Thus the inspiration for today's recipe.

In our freezer was ham from Easter, shredded cheddar cheese and chopped scapes, while in the refrigerator was a head of cauliflower and from the pantry we pulled out mushroom pieces and mushroom soup.

Now we stood in the kitchen looking at our ingredients and decided the flavours went together, that nothing shouted DON’T USE ME!  Sometimes meals just happen this way.  

Here is Ham and Cauliflower Casserole and we hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Ingredients

Scapes

• 4 cup cubed cooked ham
• 1/3 cup chopped green onions or scapes (garlic plant tops)
• 1 small head of cauliflower broken into bite size pieces
• 1 Can of mushroom pieces
• 1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
• 11/4 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Directions

1. Mix the first 6 ingredients and pour into a 9 x 12 baking dish
2. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes at 350 F.
3. Spread the remaining cheddar cheese over the top and return to the oven for 15 minutes
4. Serve

From Our Table To Yours

Grandma Snyder

©2013 - 2016 twosnydergirls

Sweet Potatoe Sandwich Bread

Gluten Free

Sandwich Bread

Our local Independent grocery store has started to carry Raw Sweet Potatoe Flour and I purchased some and went home to try it in my favourite Sandwich Bread recipe.  The result was a rich moist bread.  

Ingredients:

1 cup brown rice flour

1 3/4 cups warm water

2 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon yeast

1 1/2 cups raw sweet potatoe flour

2/3 cup milk powder

1/3 cup corn starch 

1/3 cup sorghum flour 

2 teaspoons xanthan gum

3 eggs

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup coconut oil

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.  and grease your loaf pan with coconut oil and line the pan with a parchment paper sling.
2. Mix the honey, yeast and warm water in a medium bowl and cover with plastic wrap.  Your yeast should active and bobble.
3. Combine all dry ingredients and in a separate bowl
4. Combine all wet ingredients including the yeast
5. Combined wet and dry ingredients mixing at a low speed for about 6 minutes.
6. Bake for one hour or until a test stick comes out clean

Enjoy 

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2014 twosnydergirls 

Coconut Apple Loaf Gluten and Dairy Free

 

Looking around the kitchen we noticed that our Good Food Box apples were starting to go soft and needed to be used.  We had been talking about making Morning Glory Muffins and we could make apple muffins instead.  

The more I thought about this however the more I really wanted a loaf something that I could substitute for bread in my lunches.  Thus is was that we created this coconut apple loaf recipe.

Not wanting to use sugar or butter we substituted coconut oil and gluten free, sugar free apple butter and to add further sweetness and flavour the coconut flakes.

Ingredients:

1 cup quinoa flour

½ cup potato starch

½ cup tapioca starch

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup coconut flakes

½ cup chopped pecans

¼ cup coconut oil

2/3 cup apple butter

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup coarsely grated apples skins left on

Mix all of this ingredients together and pour into your loaf pan.

Bake at 350 F for between 45 and 60 minutes depending on your oven and elevation above sea level.

Enjoy

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2014 twosnydergirls