This might just be my favorite scone recipe ever. It’s everything a good scone should be — subtle, but flavorful. Perfect with coffee or tea. And totally memorable.

Scones unfairly get a bad rap, I think. It’s usually with folks who’ve only had the dry, rock-like version that some stores sell. And really, if that’s the only way you’ve had them, it’s not surprising if you groan and turn away when you see someone writing about them. Those scones are an acquired taste, for sure. But I urge you: give homemade scones a chance.

Homemade scones are different. They have a crusty outside, yes, but that gives way to a soft, tender interior. Scones are definitely best the day they’re made, warm from the oven. But they are good the next day too — especially if you warm them up briefly before serving. But you should know that scones won’t last more than two days (they lose that softness after that) … but then again, scones rarely last more than two days in my house anyway.

When Shawn asked me to make some scones this weekend, I decided to just work with what we had in the fridge — and this recipe was born using flavors we love with a tried and true process. This is a mash-up of my family’s favorite pancake recipe for Blueberry White Chocolate Buttermilk Pancakes and a killer recipe for Raspberry White Chocolate Scones that’s another favorite. Tangy buttermilk, sweet white chocolate chips and some delicious tart wild blueberries are like breakfast-craft for me. So good.

These scones are buttery with a nice coarse sugar sprinkled top … You’ll love them. I swear.

I heated up a couple of these for the kids this morning and Will was so excited that the flavors were like his favorite pancake. He’s declared this his new favorite scone. Sweet.

Blueberry White Chocolate Buttermilk Scones
yields 8 scones
adapted from Raspberry White Chocolate Scones

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp Kosher salt
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup frozen wild blueberries
1/4 cup cold unsalted butter, plus 1 tbsp reserved
2 large eggs
1/3 cup buttermilk
coarse sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and then set side.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt (a wire whisk is great for this). Using a pastry cutter or two knives, cut the 1/4 cup of cold butter into the flour mixture until it looks like coarse crumbs. Fold in the white chocolate chips and blueberries.

In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs and buttermilk until well-combined. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the egg mixture. Stir gently from the inside  out until the dry ingredients are all moistened. The dough will be crumbly.

Turn out the dough onto a floured board and with floured hands, pat into a 3/4-inch thick circle. Using a pizza wheel, cut into eight triangles. Carefully move from the cutting board to the prepared baking sheet. I use an offset spatula, which is perfect for it.

Melt the remaining tablespoon of butter and brush the tops of the scones with it. Sprinkle with coarse sugar.

Bake for 18-20 minutes, until cooked through and just starting to turn golden at the peaks.

Enjoy hot from the oven or let cool and store in an airtight container at room temperate for up to two days.

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More from Sarah W. Caron of Sarah’s Cucina Bella

• Snapshot: Sarah Caron in the Newtown Bee (a profile by our local weekly newspaper)
• How to create the ultimate chili bar for your Super Bowl 2012 party on Chef Mom

Coffee cake is one of those things. It’s comforting and familiar and perfect for breakfast. This one, made from a recipe from the 1930s, has a dense crumb and an irresistible buttery cinnamon sugar topping.

No, it’s not that impossibly fluffy and almost-dessert-sweet coffee cake from the grocery store. But it doesn’t want to be. It’s a totally different coffee cake — one that stands up to the fork without squishing into oblivion and that can be eaten by hand without crumbling all over. And it’s really great with a hot, steaming cup of coffee.

It is coffee cake after all.

Making this, I wasn’t sure if the vintage sensibilities would make it a winner for us. But it was. Hugely.

I whipped it up for a brunch with friends last weekend where the cake quickly vanished. Seriously, not a trace was left behind. Good sign, right? And it was so good that I baked another just for our family.

Back to the brunch for a second. Though I adore brunch, I don’t have people over (or go out) for it nearly enough. So I was thrilled to have a little one at my house. The brunch menu was simple — bagels and lox with all the fixings, scrambled eggs, berry and pineapple fruit salad and this coffee cake. In the course of conversation, I shared that this was a vintage recipe — something dug out of my great collection of early 20th century cookery books, pamphlets and recipe cards.

This recipe comes from the third edition of All About Home Baking, published in 1936 (the original was published in 1933) by the General Foods Corporation, a now-defunct company whose products (Calumut baking powder, Post cereals, Maxwell House Coffee and General Foods International Coffees, to name a few) live on. I bought this hardcover book off eBay a while back.

My friend asked about my interest in vintage recipes, which really got me thinking about why I have been so into pre-1960s cookery. I made this conscious decision to reclaim lost cooking techniques because I feel like as the reliance on prepared, prepackage and shortcut based cooking has grown, we’ve lost some of the skill and technique that our grandmothers and great-grandmothers used in the kitchen. To them, making a quick coffee cake for breakfast or brunch or whatever was just that. It was simple, uncomplicated and easy.

And when I find a winner — like this coffee cake — I love to share it.

All told, this recipe for Cinnamon Sugar Coffee Cake takes about 30 minutes to make — maybe 40, if you include the cooling time. And most of that time is totally hands off (making the dough for the cake takes maybe 5 minutes). Be warned, instead of a batter this really makes a crumbly dough. Don’t worry if it doesn’t form a ball — you just need all the ingredients to have come together before you press it into a pan with floured hands.

And don’t change a thing about the buttery cinnamon-sugar topping. It’s the best part. (Aren’t topping always the best part?)

You can do this. Dust off that cake pan this weekend and give it a try.

Cinnamon Sugar Coffee Cake
recipe from All About Home Baking, 1936
serves 8

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
6 tbsp butter
1 large egg
1/2 cup milk

Topping:

1 1/2 tbsp melted butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease a 9-inch cake pan all over the inside with a little butter.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Cut in the butter using a pastry cutter or two knives.

In a small bowl, whisk together the egg and milk until light and frothy.

Pour the egg mixture into the dry ingredients. Stir well until all combined. The dough will be somewhat stiff, but keep stirring until everything is incorporated.

Transfer the dough to the prepared pan. Using floured hands, gently pat it down into one even layer.

Brush the top of the coffee cake with melted butter. Then, stir together the sugar, flour and cinnamon for the topping. Sprinkle all over the top of the coffee cake.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out cleanly. Let cool for five minutes in the pan. Then, gently loosen the sides with a butter knife. Turn out onto a plate and then turn back onto a serving plate.

Enjoy!

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More from Sarah W. Caron of Sarah’s Cucina Bella

• Easy Thai Red Curry Cauliflower and Garbanzo Beans on Tablespoon
• Follow me on Pinterest

When you plan your meals ahead of time, the evening goes much smoother. It becomes simpler to just finish up whatever you need to (work, laundry, whatever) and then move into a speedy dinner prep. Unfortunately, I fell back into bad habits recently and wasn’t planning dinners. Heck, I wasn’t even thinking about dinner … until it was time to make it. We consumed a lot of pasta. It was really chaotic, and I hate chaos.

But I am working on it (we’re on day five of planning success!). Honestly, the stress of having dinner roll around without a plan is something I don’t need. No one needs it. And it’s just too easy to skirt the issue with a little bit of planning.

The slow cooker really comes in handy. It’s just so simple. You toss the ingredients in early in the morning and then when dinnertime rolls around, you have a hot, ready to go dinner. If you are struggling with dinners, you should totally get your slow cooker out and give it a shot. Having this stew bubbling away the other afternoon provided such sweet peace of mind so that I could focus on what I needed to without stressing over what I would toss together for dinner.

Oh, and this Slow Cooker Beef and Veggie Stew is a great dish to re-start your slow cooking adventures with.

This stew has a faint French onion-ness to the broth, but not so much that onion haters will balk (and the onion pieces are big so they can pick ‘em out anyway). And the roasted garlic adds dimension to the broth. The slow cooking blends the flavors as it renders the stew meat completely fall-apart tender. The vegetables – carrots, broccoli stems, potatoes and sweet potatoes – give the stew bulk so that it fills you up.

Did you catch that it has broccoli stems. Stems! The part that no one loves to eat. I keep stems in my freezer for using in recipes like this. And honestly, after slow cooking the stems for so long, the kids and I really enjoyed them in this stew. It was an unexpected but welcome element.

Eat this with a slice of buttered bread. Just divine.

Slow Cooker Beef and Veggie Stew
serves 6

1 1/4 lb stew beef, cut into 1″ chunks
1 small onion, quartered
1 Yukon gold potato, diced
1 sweet potato, diced
3 carrots, peeled and sliced into 1/2″ thick pieces
6 cloves roasted garlic, sliced and crushed
1/2 cup diced broccoli stems
4 cups beef stock
1/2 cup red wine
salt and pepper, to taste
flour (for thickening)

Combine all of the ingredients except the flour in the bowl of the slow cooker. Stir gently. Cover and cook on low for 10-12 hours.

Remove a ladle of broth from the stew to a container with a cover and add flour (2 tbsp to start). Cover and shake vigorously until combined. Stir into the stew. Repeat until you reach desired thickness.

Serve immediately. Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to five days.

Right now, I am sitting in a Starbucks, sipping a Venti Nonfat Peppermint White Mocha and praying I can finish this blog post and hit publish in the next six minutes — before I have to dash out of here and head back to get my daughter from ballet so we can head to my son’s school for his winter concert. It’ll be the second winter concert we’ve attended today, the first being my daughter’s this morning, and the third time I’ve been to the school today.

It’s that kind of day. And let me tell you, these biscotti — they are not for making on a day like today. While they aren’t hard to make, they do take some time and a little patience. And a dash of ends-justifies-the-means. Save this one for later this week, when you have a little time to spare — it’s totally worth making.

This biscotti is filled with chocolate (my favorite kind!) and has a light hint of coconut — it’s really subtle. These bake up perfectly crisp and are fabulous dipped in a cup of fresh, strong coffee.

You start by mixing up all the dry ingredients. Just stir them all together in a bowl. It’s really that simple.

Then you whisk together the wet ingredients and add them to the dry ones. Don’t be fussy about it — just pour it all in.

When you stir it together, it will look all crumbly — like it couldn’t possibly form a dough, let alone make those fabulous slices of crisp biscotti. Don’t worry. It will. This is the point where you turn the dough out on a floured board and knead it like crazy for two minutes or so.

Once it’s all kneaded, you form a log. I did it on the cutting board this time, but generally, it’s easier to do this directly on the baking sheet. Which ever way you do it, the next step is to pat it into a 1-inch-thick log that’s sort of rectangular shaped.

Then you bake it. This is what it looks like after the first bake. After this, you cut it into 1/2-inch slices and rebake it. Twice (once for each side of the slice.). Then it’s done. Well, once it’s cooled it is. You know what I mean.

These are perfect for packing up with a coffee gift card for teacher’s gifts. It’s what all of Paige and Will’s teacher’s got this holiday.

Or you could just eat them yourself with a cup of coffee. It’s a fabulous breakfast.

Now, I am off and running.

Double Chocolate Coconut Biscotti
yields about 2 dozen pieces

2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup sweetened coconut
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 egg white (from a large egg)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, semisweet chocolate chips, white chocolate chips and coconut. In a smaller bowl, beat together the vanilla extract, eggs and egg white until well combined.

Pour the egg mixture into the dry ingredients and stir until it’s mostly combined. The dough will be crumbly and not come together at all.

Turn out onto a floured board and knead the dough with floured hands until it forms a mostly smooth ball.

Place the dough onto the prepared baking sheet and pat into a 1-inch thick piece, pushing the ends in until the dough is rectangular in shape.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, until golden at the edges. Remove from the oven and transfer the log to a cutting board. Cut the biscotti into 1/2 inch slices (it helps to score it with a serrated knife and then cut with an extra-sharp knife straight down). Place the slices on a parchment lined baking sheet. It’s okay if they touch.

Bake for 10 minutes. Flip all the slices and then bake for another 10 minutes. Let cool on the baking sheet for five minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to fully cool. The biscotti hardens as it cools.

Store in an airtight container for up to one week.

It’s a muffin! It’s a corn muffin! It’s a maple corn muffin! And it’s amazing.

Filled with maple-y goodness, these easy muffins aren’t overly sweet, which makes them so versatile. You can enjoy them warm with a pat of butter (my favorite way!) for breakfast or a snack. Who doesn’t love butter? They are tender and a little crumbly, a nice combination. But, I keep dreaming of enjoying these with chili too. Maybe tomorrow?

Making these is easy. First you grab your ingredients — you may even have them all right now. See? I told you they were easy.

First you mix the dry ingredients. Then you beat together the wet ones. Then you mix it all together.

Portion out the dough into muffin cups. Then you bake.

Once they are all cooked, you can eat them soon after hot with butter … or let them cool and enjoy them later. Hint: to reheat these, bake at 325 for 10 minutes.

Either way, these make a great breakfast or muffin with chili.

Maple Corn Muffins
yields 12 muffins

1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup cornmeal
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup low-fat milk
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup melted unsalted butter (1 stick)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease 12 muffin slots in a muffin pan.

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt until well-combined. In a small mixing bowl, beat the eggs lightly. Add the milk and maple syrup and whisk to combine. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir well until combined.

Divide the batter evenly among the 12 muffin cups. Using a big ice cream scoop can help.

Slide the pan into the oven and bake for 18-20 minutes until the muffins are cooked through and golden. Loosen and remove from the pan. Let cool.

These are great served hot with a pat of butter. To reheat, split in half and bake for 10 minutes at 325.

Biscuits didn’t make frequent appearances on our table when I was a child. No, we were more of a grocery store bakery Italian bread family — always purchased fresh that day with a crusty outside and a soft, airy inside. Since I wasn’t a fan of the crusty outside, I would tear out the insides of the bread, roll it into a doughy ball and eat it that way. Odd, I know, but it was the way I enjoyed it.

Don’t worry, I don’t eat bread that way anymore. Just can’t get away with that at 31.

This isn’t about my bread eating habits though. We’re here to talk biscuits. Though I didn’t eat them much as I child, I actually love them and make them often in the winter. Delicate, fluffy biscuits are a dream.

Still, I’m picky about my biscuits. While I love Cream Biscuits and my special layered Whole Wheat Biscuits, I’ve looked down on Baking Powder Biscuits because they seemed to be denser, heavier biscuits that are dry and boring. That’s the way they had always turned out when I made them. But it turns out that I have been missing out. It’s all in the recipe (isn’t that always the case?). In this instance, I turned to a classic.

Awhile back, I bought a box of old recipes and cookbooks on eBay. I have a slight obsession with vintage cookbooks and recipes, so when I saw this set I had to have it. The recipes — a lot from the 20s, 30s and 40s — are an amazing look at how people used to cook. This weekend, I was looking through them and came across the 1926 Watkins Cook Book, a small book of recipes by The J.R. Watkins Company. The company made (actually they still make) all sorts of baking items including baking powder (among many other things). While I was leafing through it, the recipe for Baking Powder Biscuits jumped out at me.

These biscuits are amazing — light and fluffy with a slightly crisp, crumbly exterior. My version is adapted from the original and updated for modern cooking. While the original recipe didn’t specify a cooking temperature, I tested a couple temperatures to find out what worked best — it ended up being a mix of lower, slow cooking and a broiling finish. I also traded in the shortening that the original recipe called for, using butter instead, and added a brush of butter on the top before broiling, which is just biscuit magic. The buttery top changes these from a fluffy biscuit to a heavenly one.

Making these is simple. You need only a few basic ingredients. You probably have everything for these in your kitchen right now. (Not pictured: Milk)

And a few tools. Note: I didn’t use the biscuit cutter pictured when I made these — it was too big. A smaller 2-inch biscuit cutter is necessary for these.

First, you sift together the dry ingredients.

Then you cut in the butter.

Add the milk and stir until the dough comes together. Turn it out onto a floured board and knead it a bit.

Roll it out until it’s 1/2-inch thick. Then cut the biscuits with a 2-inch cutter. Or a jelly jar, as I did. Be sure to press down and pull up on the cutter (or jar) without turning it. This ensures that the sides remain lose and willing to rise.

Transfer them from the cutting board to a baking sheet lined with parchment or nonstick aluminum foil. Then you bake them. Once they are just about starting to color, you brush them with butter and broil them for a minute or two more. They end up a perfect golden color with amazing inner and outer texture.

All in all, the making of these takes about 10 minutes (really. I made them twice today to make sure I had the time, temperature and method just right). You have time to whip up biscuits in 10 minutes, right?

Buttery, Fluffy Baking Powder Biscuits
yields 8
adapted slightly from Watkins Cook Book, 1926

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp low-fat milk
1 tsp salted butter

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or nonstick aluminum foil. Set aside.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, salt and baking powder until well combined (about 30 seconds). Cut the pieces of cold unsalted butter into the flour mixture until they are tiny and dispersed throughout. Add the milk and stir well until the dough forms a rough ball.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface (I use a big wooden cutting board). Then knead lightly with floured hands until the dough is a smoother ball. Pat down into a circle. Use a floured rolling pin to roll the dough out until it’s 1/2-inch thick. Use a 2-inch biscuit cutter (or a jelly jar) to cut circles from the dough. Knead scraps and re-roll the dough as needed until you’ve used all but a small bit.

Arrange the biscuits on the baking sheet. Slide into the oven and bake for 14-15 minutes, until the tops begin to color slightly. Remove from the oven. Turn off the oven and start the broiler. Meanwhile, melt the salted butter and brush the tops of the biscuits with it.

Slide the tray bake into the oven and broil for 1-2 minutes, watching very carefully, until the biscuits turn golden.

Serve immediately.

With Will and Paige back in school, our house dynamic is shifting again. It does at the start and end of every summer. And I love that subtle shift … it means that sometimes I am the only one home. And sometimes it’s just Paige and I. This afternoon? Will and I will have an hour together alone. After a summer of all-family-all-the-time, it’s nice to have a little solo time and some one-on-one time with the kids. It balances things.

It’s also nice that the weather is turning to something that resembles fall – cooler temperatures, especially at night and in the early morning, and warm sunshine during the days. It’s a glorious retreat from the burning temperatures and thick humidity of August. And this afternoon, I even noticed that the leaves are beginning to drop from the trees. Progress, baby.

Really, as much as I love summertime, beautiful days spent away from the beach are more akin to torture than fun (lots of people would disagree with me, I am sure, but to me, summer must be spent at the beach).

With fall setting in, I am ready for all the warm, comforting foods it brings. Like pumpkin dishes because pumpkin is fall. Or autumn, if you prefer, but I have never been a fan of the word autumn.

This past weekend, I baked. A lot. And one of the delicious creations that came out of my afternoon baking spree was this Pumpkin Bread. It’s moist, like a good quick bread should be, and it has whispers of all the right spices – cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. It smells heavenly baking … and then the best part: you get to eat it. I suggest you toast it and then spread a pat of butter on. It’s so good that way.

Then, you can grab your mug of coffee and your favorite book (or e-reader … I love mine) and have a blissful few moments to yourself lost in a good book with a tender, sweet slice of pumpkin bread. You can thank me later.

As for that leftover pumpkin puree, try Iced Pumpkin Bundt Cake.

What’s your favorite way to enjoy pumpkin?

Pumpkin Bread
yields 1 loaf

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a loaf pan with cooking oil spray. Set aside.

Cream together the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the egg and beat well to combine. Add the pumpkin puree and mix again.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. With the stand mixer running on its lowest speed, add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients a little at a time until fully incorporated.

Add the milk to the stand mixer and mix until fully incorporated.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and then put it in the oven. Bake for 55-65 minutes, until cooked through (use a toothpick … when it comes out clean, the bread is done). Remove from the oven and let cool 10 minutes before loosening the edges with a knife and turning out onto a cooling rack. Flip the bread right side up and let cool before slicing.

This is really amazing toasted and served with a pat of butter.

Whenever my daughter and I walk by the bakery area of our local grocery store, she always says the same thing: “Mommy, can I have a muffin?” For someone who really isn’t into sweets (she turned down a slice of cake for dessert last night. It wasn’t the first time), her love of muffins is staggering and consistent. Sometimes I say yes. Other times I don’t.

This week I said no, instead opting to make my own homemade blueberry muffins.

These aren’t ultra-fancy, over-sized or bathed in butter and sugar, though any of those things can make muffins delightful. Instead, these are just a really good, homemade muffin. Tender, not too sweet, moist … all the important parts.

Sometimes what we really want is ultra-simple: a hug, a thank you, a smile … and the same goes for food. Sometimes, it’s not about the daring combination of flavors but rather the simple ones. The ones that hearken back to the foods we grew up on. The things that are comforting and remind us of home.

This recipe for blueberry muffins definitely falls in that that simple, homemade, comfort food category. They’re easy — just a one-bowl preparation and about 25 minutes in the oven. You’ll be eating them before you know it.

And then, you’ll make ‘em again. Because they really are very good.

P.S. My first book review for the BlogHer Book Club went live yesterday. I read and reviewed The Beach Trees by Karen White, a great book about friendship, family, loyalty and the ties that bind us. It’s a perfect summer read, and one that I really enjoyed. Please hop over and check it out.

Blueberry Muffins
yields 12 muffins

1 large egg
1 cup milk
1/2 cup canola oil
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup blueberries

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a 12-slot muffin tin with muffin papers.

In a large bowl, beat together the egg, milk and oil. Add the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and vanilla extract. Stir until combined. Add the blueberries and mix to combine.

Divide the batter evenly among the 12 muffin cups.

Bake for 22-26 minutes, until golden and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let cool slightly before serving.

The end of school for this year is almost here and it’s really hard to believe. Wasn’t it just yesterday that I was freaking out about catching the school bus, and adjusting to having two kids in school? Surely it was mere days ago that I was figuring out how to pack cool lunches for Will and worrying that he had enough to fill him up at lunch. Right?

Ok, ok. We all know that was really10 months ago. It just went so fast. Where did the time go?

Now that school is ending, we like to give tokens of appreciation to the teachers and bus drivers who made a difference in my kids lives this year. And after three years of having at least one child in school, I have the whole appreciation gift thing in control. (Well, at least in better control than in years past.) Sort of.

I decided on a dual gift for the teachers — something special from my kitchen and a gift certificate.  For Teacher Appreciation Week, I’d given a few of the teachers Chocolate Chip Banana Bread in a Jar, so that was out (along with anything else in a jar). And I wanted it to be something a little bigger — something they could share if they wanted. Mini-loaves of bread were the perfect solution.

I went with this mouthwatering recipe for Cinnamon Zucchini Bread Mini-Loaves. They have a lighter crumb and a fabulous, rich flavor. If you’ve never had zucchini in bread before, ignore that it’s in the title and try this anyway. As long as you like cinnamon, you will love this bread. The zucchini lends a moist crumb to this bread along with speckles of green — but that’s it. So, don’t fear the zucchini, I swear.

When I was making this, I modeled this bread after my Cinnamon-alicious Zucchini Bread. But really, they are different loaves. This one is a little less sweet, but with a bigger punch of cinnamon. Try it warmed, it’s so good like that.

What’s your favorite food gift to give?

Cinnamon Zucchini Bread Mini-Loaves
yields 3 loaves

1 1/2 all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg (preferably fresh)
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup organic sugar
2/3 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup grated fresh zucchini
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Set 3 mini-loaf pans on a baking sheet.

In a small mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Set aside.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the canola oil, organic sugar and light brown sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, whisking well after each addition.

Stir the zucchini and vanilla extract into the wet ingredients. Add the dry ingredients and stir until just moistened.

Divide the batter evenly among the three mini-loaf pans. Slide the baking sheet into the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean.

Let cool on a wire rack.

Cover tightly and then eat within 3-5 days.

A few weeks ago, Will spied a lone very ripe (ahem, brown) banana on our kitchen counter and declared that I should  make banana bread. He adores banana bread. And bananas, for that matter. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to whip up a batch then.

Today I finally got around to baking some … in jars, of course. I was tempted to call this one Chocolate Chip Banana Cake in a Jar, but really it’s basically banana bread … or banana muffins, depending on how you look at it. Really the only difference is the vessel I used to cook it in. What would you call it?

Anyway, one of the reasons for making this today is that I wanted something to send in to Paige’s classroom for her teachers tomorrow. It’s teacher appreciation week at our school (yes, I know most schools already celebrated that!), so it seemed like the perfect time to gift them with a little something. We’ve been blessed with wonderful, patient and kind teachers who love kids and make their school days so special.

Really, this is the perfect something for a teacher gift. Just top ‘em with a canning lid and tie a little card to the top to let them know what’s inside. I used basic kitchen twine, but you could go fancy with some pretty ribbon too.

As for the Chocolate Chip Banana Bread, it’s positively lovable. It’s perfectly moist, with a light crumb. I’ve added just a touch of cinnamon that gives the flavor a little depth, without really making its presence known. It’s subtle. And mini chocolate chips are the perfect addition to the sweet banana batter. It’s based on my recipe for Chocolate Chip Banana Nut Bread, but is minus the nuts to comply with the nut-free environment of our school.

The Chocolate Chip Banana Bread is baked directly in the jars on a baking sheet in the oven. I keep an old baking sheet around just for the occasion. It’s perfect for being the firm surface for small containers like this. And yes, jars are perfectly okay for baking. If you don’t have them already, you can pick some up at most grocery stores or online.

What’s your favorite food to gift?

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread in a Jar
yields 6 half-pint jelly jars

1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
2 ripe bananas, mashed
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/3 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place 6  half-pint jelly jars on a baking sheet. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter and brown sugar. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy looking, 2-3 minutes. Add the egg and beat well until combined, about 1 minute. Add the vanilla, cinnamon and bananas and beat on medium speed.

While the bananas are beating in, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl. Reduce the mixer speed to low, and add a little at a time until fully combined. Pour in the chocolate chips and beat for a few more minutes, until just combined.

Divide the batter evenly among the jelly jars, tapping each one lightly to spread it out a little.

Bake the jars on the baking sheet in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes, until the tops just start to brown and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove from oven. These can be covered with a canning jar lid and stored up to five days.