I'm not a big fan of biscuits.

I know, I know.  How very un-Southern of me.

But it's true.  Now, I'm not saying I never eat them.  I can quite adequately tear down some biscuits slathered with an inch of sausage gravy.  Who couldn't?

And actually, that illustrates my point about my relationship with biscuits.  I usually find them to be dry.  Very dry.

Then I tried these biscuits – these easy, mix 'em up in one bowl, drop biscuits. Not dry at all.

I love my pastry cutter / blender to cut butter into a dry mixture.  You can also use a fork, or your hands.

I was gifted a gallon of fresh off the no-pesticide vine blueberries about a week ago, so adding those plump bursts of juiciness into these biscuits was a must.

Then I threw in a few chocolate chips.  I was first introduced to the combination of chocolate and blueberry when I made some fudgy blueberry brownies a couple of years ago.  Since I was a bit blown away by the flavor, I don't think the combination gets enough attention.

Give these jewels a try.  I doubt you'll be disappointed.  If you want to kick the sweetness up a notch – and eat these babies for dessert – try drizzling some honey over them.  O. M. G.

Blueberry Chocolate Chip Drop Biscuits

Original recipe by Jennifer at Bake or Break.

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
  
• 2 tbsp organic cane sugar
  
• 2 tsp baking powder
  
• 1/2 tsp salt
  
• 1/4 cup butter, softened and sliced
  
• 1/2 cup sour cream
  
• 1/2 cup whole milk
  
• 1/2 cup fresh blueberries
  
• 1/4 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly butter a baking sheet. [Note: I baked these in a toaster oven!]
   
2. Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in butter. A pastry blender makes it super easy. You may also use a fork or your hands.
   
3. Stir in the sour cream, then stir in the milk. Fold in blueberries and mini chocolate chips, trying not to break too many blueberries.
   
4. Drop dough onto prepared baking sheet. Original recipe calls for "3 tablespoons (not quite 1/4 cup)" per biscuit. I used a flatware tablespoon, heavily mounded with dough. Pretty easy to eyeball.
   
5. Bake for 20 minutes then check. You're looking for a light brown color and a biscuit that is firm to the touch. Try not to over bake. My little oven didn't require more than 22 minutes.

Yield: 1 dozen

Shared at This Is How We Roll, Thrifty Thursday, From the Farm, Happiness is Homemade, Tasty Tuesdays, and Simple Saturdays.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a very small commission if you click a link and buy something. This helps pay for the RV, supports our mountain homestead dream of owning land, as well as my blogging activities, and makes the dogs happy.  Hopefully, the purchase benefits you, too!  The price you pay will be no different than if you arrived at the same destination through any other link. My opinions are my own, to be sure. If I link to a product and say I like it -- I truly like it! Thanks for reading, following, and supporting Stephlin's Mountain.

From my mountaintop to yours!

Tonight's dinner is corn and poblano lasagna. Zucchini is a required ingredient, so before B got in the kitchen to tackle the prep for our evening meal, I snuck in and used what he didn't need to make some bread!

Before I share the recipe for this yumminess, may I ask you a question? Is the term "batter bread" redundant in the instance of the title of this post?

Maybe it's because I bake for a living, or maybe it's because I'm weird (I'll cop to either), but I always differentiate between a batter bread -- or quick bread, if you prefer -- and a traditional dough bread (with yeast).

B comes in the kitchen to ask what I'm making. My reply is, "Zucchini batter bread." He proceeds to tell me saying batter bread is unnecessary. Everyone knows zucchini bread is made with a batter. "Like banana nut bread," he says. I'm quite sure I responded with a you-have-no-idea-what-you're-talking-about look. But I simply stated, "Well, OK. But don't expect me to change how I say it based on this conversation." -- Thoughts?

The base recipe I used comes from Paula Deen. I did add one ingredient. (I just adore vanilla!) And since I make my own extract, I have the pure stuff right at my fingertips. It smells divine, and I love to see the brown vanilla bean flecks in the mixture.

Doesn't that look delicious? The loaf isn't overly sweet, in my opinion. A slice of this zucchini (batter!) bread would make a nice breakfast, snack, or dessert.  Just don't forget: everything's better with a pat of butter!

Vanilla Spiced Zucchini Batter Bread

Based on Paula Deen's recipe here, scaled down to make a single loaf.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 + 1/8 cups all-purpose flour (or, 1 5/8 cups)
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 3 tbsp water
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract (make your own!)
• 1 cup grated zucchini
• 1/2 tsp lemon juice
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, nutmeg, baking soda, cinnamon, and sugar.
3. In a separate bowl, combine vanilla, vegetable oil, eggs, water, zucchini, and lemon juice.
4. Mix wet ingredients into dry. Fold in pecans. Pour batter into a greased standard loaf pan (I used an 8" x 3" pan).
5. Bake 50 minutes to 1 hour, using the toothpick test to check for doneness. (Mine was done in 54 minutes.)

Yield: 1 standard loaf

Shared at All Things Thursday, Fabulously Frugal Thursday, The HomeAcre Hop, Simple Lives Thursday, Thrifty Thursday, Thriving Thursday, and some of these fine hops.

Cinnamon Bread. Quick and Simple.

I love quick breads. Mix the batter, pour it in a pan, pop it in the oven to bake. That's it. No long, drawn out process required.

A while back I had a craving for cinnamon bread. I was thinking of a traditional loaf with yeast and all, but was too lazy to go through the motions necessary for my desired result. Ever been there? Yep. Me, too. Quick bread to the rescue!

I found a recipe to try at Allrecipes.com, gave it a go, and was happy I did. It's not the prettiest loaf I've ever seen, but it sure is yummy. There's a nice sweet crust on top, and the cinnamon flavor can be tasted throughout. Since the "swirl" technique is used, I wasn't sure that would be achieved -- glad I was wrong. Craving fulfilled.

Want another peek?

Go ahead.  Get your drool on.  I won't tell.

OK.  You've been (fairly) patient.  Recipe after one more.

Simple Cinnamon Quick Bread

Submitted to Allrecipes.com by bettina.

Original recipe advises to wrap finished (and cooled) loaf in foil and let sit overnight before slicing. I totally did not do this. (Who could wait? I had a craving, remember?) But I'm quite sure the slices would have looked prettier had I followed this direction. :-)

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup + 1 cup granulated white sugar
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup milk
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 and lightly grease a 9"x5" loaf pan.
2. Mix together 1/3 cup sugar and 2 tsp cinnamon in a small bowl. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and remaining 1 cup sugar. In another bowl, combine egg, milk, and oil. Add wet ingredients to dry. Stir until moistened.
4. Pour half the batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle with 1/2 cinnamon and sugar mixture. Repeat with remaining batter and cinnamon / sugar. Run a knife through the batter to swirl all together.
5. Bake for 45 - 50 minutes. Use the toothpick test to ensure doneness. Let cool in pan 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Yield: (1) 9"x5" loaf

Shared at Simple Saturdays, Simply Natural Saturdays, and some of these other fine hops.

We had a good deal on some nice strawberries recently at work, so I partook and purchased a couple of pounds. Little did I know how that simple transaction would change my life. Exaggeration? I think not, but you be the judge.

I was poking around the 'net for a strawberry bread recipe, and what I found did not disappoint. After giving it a go, what resulted was quite possibly one of the best things I've ever eaten. Definitely the best strawberry bread I've ever eaten.

Yep, all that strawberry goodness in one loaf!

The recipe is from Saveur. More specifically, Saveur kitchen assistant Farideh Sadeghin. It has a yield of two loaves, but, me being me, I cut it in half for one loaf. I know that doesn't always work in baking, but this one turned out just fine.

There is cinnamon in the mix, and you can taste it nicely in the batter before baking. (I think that batter alone would make a nice coffee cake, but that's for another day.) But I got barely a hint of it after baking, so don't let that scare you. The recipe also calls for strawberry jam to be swirled into the top. Between me and you, I wouldn't do that unless maybe you had freshly made jam at your fingertips. Store bought jam (IMHO) puts a damper on the fresh strawberry flavor of the rest of the bread.

Another delectable of this loaf is the slight crisp and crunch of the crust. That sugar adds a lovely texture as well as yummy-ness.

Funny thing is, just two people managed to make that single loaf of strawberry bread disappear in about 24 hours. B (obviously) agreed with me that it was so good -- Oh. My. Goodness good. So much so, that he made a second loaf with the second pound of strawberries.

Recipe after one more enticing photo...

O.M.G. Strawberry Bread

Adapted from Saveur kitchen assistant Farideh Sadeghin's recipe here.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 + 1/8 (or, 5/8) cup canola oil
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups strawberries, roughly chopped
• 1/4 cup strawberry jam (optional)

Instructions

1. Heat oven to 350°, and grease a 9x5 loaf pan.
2. Whisk flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a large bowl.
3. Whisk sugar, oil, and eggs in a separate bowl. Combine wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Stir in strawberries.
4. Pour batter into pan. If using jam, just dollop across the top and swirl into batter.
5. Bake until golden brown, about an hour (mine took 1 hr, 6 min). Let cool a bit before turning it out of the pan -- about 30 minutes.

Yield: 1 loaf

Shared at Simple Saturdays Blog Hop, Simply Natural Saturdays, Old-Fashioned Friday, From the Farm Blog Hop, Freedom Fridays, and Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop.

Since I've started making jams and butters, I decided to start looking into making my own sweet breads (yep, that's how I like to eat my jams and butters -- with more sugar). I also thought of it as a cost-cutting measure. Some of the breads I like to eat are crazy priced.

I'm not new to making bread; I've been getting paid to do it for about twenty years. It's not often something I do at home, though. Many, many years ago I owned a bread machine. We used it often enough, but when I got my all-time favorite kitchen appliance it seemed a little unnecessary so we got rid of it. What's my all-time favorite appliance? The Kitchen Aid mixer, of course!

My Kitchen Aid is one of the classics (that's really what they call it now). I've had it for about twelve years, and it still works wonderfully. I've thought about upgrading to one of the artisan mixers, but that would be filling a luxurious want more than a need. Maybe one day, but probably not as long as my classic continues to do the job well.

I guess the reason why I shared that with you is because of the recipe book I used for the sweet bread -- it's a collection of recipes for bread machines. (But I'm here to tell you, you don't have to have a bread machine to use the recipes!)

The recipe that follows is for an egg bread with slightly sweet overtones, using Mountain Dew instead of water. It's delicious with blueberry butter, and it makes a mean honey smoked turkey sandwich. (You can totally go with water if the idea of Mt. Dew in your bread makes you squeamish.)

Wet Ingredients

Ready to Bake

Enjoy!

Sweet Mountain Dew Bread

Adapted from Sweet Bread recipe, pg. 59, The All-New Ultimate Bread Machine Cookbook

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup Mountain Dew
• 1 extra-large egg
• 1 extra-large egg yolk
• 3 tbsp unsalted butter, cut up
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 3 cups bread flour
• 1 packet fast-rise yeast

Instructions

1. Add dry ingredients to mixer. Next add the butter and incorporate. Then add the egg, egg yolk, and Mountain Dew. Mix until dough forms, cleans the bowl, and has proper development.
2. Let dough rest for about an hour. Shape it into a loaf and place it in pan.
3. Let dough proof in pan for about two hours.
4. Bake in a 375° oven for about 25 minutes. Turn out of pan and let cool on rack.

Shared at From the Farm Blog Hop, Freedom Fridays, The HomeAcre Hop, Thriving Thursday, and All Things Thursday.

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Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a very small commission if you click the link and buy something. This helps support my blogging activities, and the price you pay will be no different than if you arrived at the same destination through any other link. My opinions are my own, to be sure. If I link to a product and say I like it -- I truly like it! :-) Thanks for reading and following Stephlin's Mountain.