Oatcakes by gaudy Night

(from Herr Ritter's father: note I have never actually made this recipe myself).

1 c. flour, sifted with
1 T sugar
1 t. baking powder
½ t. salt

Place this in a large bowl, and mix with 2 c. quick rolled oats (must be the “quick” variety). Then cut in ½ c. soft butter or margarine (I find half and half works best).

Finally, add ½ c. milk. Mix the milk in with a large spoon so that eventually you get a single round blob or ball of dough. Put flour on your hands and shape the ball into a reasonable sphere (it’s likely to be sticky). Make sure you have a large counter or board to work on. Cut the ball of dough in half and put half to one side; place the other in the middle of a pile of flour and pat it down into a rough circle about ½ inch thick. Now take a rolling pin and begin to roll it out, again keeping the circular shape. You’ll probably need to use a spatula or something to pick it up off the board and turn it over into more flour before it gets too thin or stuck to the board. Repeat the rolling process, shaping it toward a rough oval shape. When it’s thinned down to about ¼ inch [more like 1/8; remember it will rise] and about the size of a greased cookie sheet, use the sheet to slide under the dough in one smooth motion.

Bake at 375º for 12-15 minutes; take it out when it gets just brown.

Rye Rolls and Rye Sausage Buns by Erythrosine

Rye Rolls

1 cup plus one tablespoon water
2 tablespoons sugar
1.25 cups whole rye flour
2.25 teaspoons instant yeast
0.5 cup all-natural sour cream
(optional one teaspoon to two tablespoons caraway seeds or sesame seeds)
1.5 teaspoons salt
2 cups white 100% whole wheat flour (King Arthur brand, which is lighter than whole wheat flour made from red wheat)
2 tablespoons wheat gluten

In the pan of a bread machine, mix the water, sugar, rye flour, and yeast together with a non-scratching spoon or spatula. Let the dough rest for twenty minutes, while the yeast wakes up and becomes bubbly. Add sour cream, seeds, salt, wheat flour, and gluten, then place in bread machine set to "dough". When the dough is ready (1.5 hours later in my machine), divide the rolls into 12 or 16 or 24 equal parts, depending on the size of roll you want, roll between your hands, and then flatten to the shape of a hamburger patty. Place on a sheet of parchment paper on a baking sheet and allow to rise in a warm place for 45 minutes, then preheat the oven to 425°F.

While the oven is preheating, brush the rolls with water, using a pastry brush or silicone brush, and sprinkle on seeds, if desired. (Water works just as well as beaten egg yolk and is less trouble.) Use sesame seeds for hamburgers, or a mixture of sesame seeds, poppy seeds, minced dried garlic, minced dried toasted onion, and kosher salt for "everything" buns.

When the oven is preheated, bake the rolls until their internal temperature reads between 190 and 200°F on an instant read thermometer, about twelve minutes.

Variation:

Sausage buns

Include 1 tablespoon of caraway seeds in the dough. Cut a one-pound kielbasa into eight pieces, and wrap each one in one-eighth of the dough, when it comes out of the bread machine. Wrap carefully and place seam-side-down on the parchment paper on the baking sheet. Cook in a 425°F oven until the instant read thermometer says at least 190°F in the middle, about fifteen minutes.

Here is the original that the above recipes are based on: King Arthur Caraway Rye Bread. It does not call for the use of a bread machine, and it calls for more water and different flours, and doesn't mention buns or sausage rolls.

Oatcakes by MollyDunlop

Here is the oatcake recipe I use. It's from Dan Lepard's book The Art of Handmade Bread, which you must all go out and buy now, to make up for my stealing his recipe.

Oatcakes

1.5 cups (250 g) fine oatmeal
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1.25 tbsp (20 g) unsalted butter or lard
6 tbsp (100 g) water at room temperature
additional oatmeal for rolling

In a bowl, combine the oatmeal, salt and baking soda then rub in the butter until all the lumps disappear. Add the water and mix to a soft dough.

Sprinkle a little oatmeal on the work surface, place the dough on top, and sprinkle more oatmeal over the dough. Use the heel of your hand to flatten the dough, then sprinkle again, over and under, with oatmeal. Roll it out to a scant 1/4" thickness. You may need to run a spatula under the dough to make user it doesn't stick. Cut out disks with a 3" cutter, and place on a baking sheet that has been sprinkled with oatmeal. You can rework this dough without destroying the structure, so re-roll it as needed to get as many cakes as you can.

Bake at 400 F (200 C) for 30-40 minutes, until crisp and beginning to brown at the edges. Cool on a rack, then store in an airtight tin.

You don't so much bake oatcakes as dry them; the oven will fill with steam as they cook. It is almost impossible to screw them up unless you actually burn them. They're excellent with butter and a sharpish berry jam or good marmalade, and very good with cheese or smoked fish.

Apricot Bread by Sicut Cervus

[Based on recipe from Beard on Bread, with corrections.]

I can't speak to whether it's better with apples, peaches, etc., since Pops has a different recipe (from the same book) for Apple Walnut Bread that is also delish but quite different in texture and crumb, being based, like cake, on creaming butter and sugar together. As to dried peaches vs. apricots, I can say that my friend Clio who now lives in Merced, CA, just sent me some dried nectarines from her local farmers' market, and OMG sooooooooooo good.

Anyway. The recipe.

1 1/2 cups dried apricots (one package if you buy them that way)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 3/4 cups unbleached flour (Pops uses about 2 cups white, 3/4 cups whole wheat)
1 cup chopped nuts (he usually uses about 1/2 walnuts, 1/2 almonds, but you could also use pecans or any other combination of nuts)

Preheat oven to 350.

Pour 1 cup boiling water over the apricots and let stand till just tender -- do not oversoak. Drain off the water and reserve it. If it's now less than a cup, add more water to make 1 cup water, and pour into a large mixing bowl.

Add baking soda, sugar, and eggs and mix well.

Roughly chop the apricots, and toss with flour, baking powder, and salt in a second bowl. Pour the liquids into the solids. Add the nuts and mix well.

Butter and flour two loaf tins. Divide the batter into equal parts and pour into the tins. (You can line the tins with wax paper or parchment paper if you want to be sure to get the loaves out without any of the crust sticking to the pans).

Bake about 45 minutes (takes less in our oven, so start checking at 30-35 minutes in case your oven is similar) -- till loaves are nicely risen, dark in color, and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Allow to cool before slicing, if you can stand it. Once cooled, bread is delicious sliced cold, or sliced cold and warmed briefly in microwave OR briefly toasted in toaster; plain or spread with butter or cream cheese and/or topped with sliced sharp or mild cheese.

Could probably also be baked in a bundt pan as a coffee cake.

Magic Bulgur by bookseller

Saute 1 diced onion in 4 tablespoons butter. You could use olive oil, and you could probably cut the amount in half. Recipe says to add a couple stalks of celery; I'd rather get root canal with a rusty can opener. Stir the onion around over medium heat until it's translucent.

The stir in 1 cup bulgur -- I like the coarse grind, recipe doesn't specify. If you're looking for more of a porridge-y texture, fine would probably be the way to go. Add a pinch each of kosher/sea salt and black pepper, and stir this all for about 1 minute, till the bulgur starts to smell a little toasty.

Add 1.5 cups chicken broth or water, cover the pan, and let everything simmer (that probably means turning down the heat under the pan) for 15 minutes or so, until the bulgur is tender. At this point, if you'd like to cook it ahead and reheat it, you can. Stop, scrape everything into a bowl, stick it in the fridge. Later, you can heat it up in a bit more oil or butter (which will make it crisper and toastier and altogether more delicious) or you can steam it in a covered pan with a little bit of stock or water, which will still be tasty, but hey, steaming v. butter...choose your own sin.

When the bulgur is hot and you're ready to eat, stir in about 2 tablespoons good plain yogurt (I'd go with Greek, personally) and the same amount of chopped parsley (my choice) or dill (if you want a northern European flavor -- which would be very good with fish). In my vegetarian days, I used to make entire extremely happy meals out of a bowl of this stuff and some steamed veg -- cabbage and carrots in particular. But I also love it as a side to any kind of plain fish or seafood, either grilled or steamed, and I bet it would be great with lamb chops, in which case a raw zucchini salad with a sharp oregano vinaigrette, and maybe a few soaked currants in the bulgar, would be pretty fab.

Oooh, you know what I bet would be great? Make this up, but with butter and yogurt only, no onions or pepper, no parsley or dill, no savory ingredients. Eat it hot with some cold stewed fruit, like a classic eastern European kompot of apples or pears and dried apricots and prunes stewed with sugar or honey, a vanilla bean and some lemon rind, and either water or juice or red wine. That would make some kind of fabulous breakfast. With a nice glass tea, you'd be ready to go pick mushrooms in the forest with Zasha and Yevgeny.

ETA In fact, with a little forward planning, this would be an extremely easy breakfast. Not only does the kompot keep well, but I know from personal experience that it also freezes well, like in little 1/4-cup twists of Baggie. We already know the bulgar can be made ahead. The night before, take one of your Baggies outa the freezer, and leave it to thaw in the fridge overnight. In the morning, nuke some bulgur till it's hot, stir in a little yogurt, and top it with your cold, syrupy fruit. If you are determined to get fancy and cause your breakfast guest to adore you, toast a few heart-healthy walnut halves while the bulgur is nuking, chop them roughly and sprinkle them on top.

Your guest will never leave.

Long-Rise Bread with Carrot and Walnuts by MollyDunlop

OK, here's the recipe for the long-rise bread. It's from Jim Lahey's book My Bread.

3 cups flour (I use 2 of bread flour and 1 of WW)
1/4 teaspoon dry yeast
1 to 2 tspns salt (to taste)
1 1/2 cups fresh carrot juice (I grate a couple of carrots and run them through the blender)
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup currants (optional)
about 1 tspn whole cumin seed

Mix flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl. Stir in the juice to form a soft, "shaggy" dough; it should be just too wet to knead. Add water by tablespoons if required. Work in the walnuts and currants. Cover bowl with oiled plastic wrap and leave at room temperature for 18-24 hours.

Turn the risen dough onto a floured surface and fold it over a couple of times. Shape it into a round loaf. Take a clean cloth (cotton or linen dish towel is ideal) and cover it heavily in flour. Scatter the cumin seed over the flour. Dump the shaped bread onto the cloth and leave it for an hour or so. Heat your oven about as hot as it will go, 450-475 F. Heat up a large, lidded cast-iron or earthenware pot in the oven. Once hot, remove the pot, dump the loaf into the pot (don't worry if it goes in upside-down), replace the lid, and put it back in the oven for about 35-45 minutes. Remove lid and bake to a deep brown (about another 25 min). Carefully remove the whole shooting-match from the oven and tip out the loaf. Tap the bottom to make sure it sounds hollow; if not, return to oven and bake in 5-minute increments until done (don't bother putting it back in the pot). Cool on a rack; freezes well. You can bake it as two loaves if you like. Or use a cast-iron skillet instead of the pot and don't cover it, but throw half a cup of water onto the oven floor just before you close the door on the loaf (the idea is to create a steamy atmosphere for crust formation).

The currants are in the original recipe, but I sometimes leave them out.

Grandma's Zucchini Bread by Sicut Cervus

[2 loaves]

Beat together in a large bowl: 3 eggs, 2 cups sugar

Add: 1 cup salad oil, 2 cups grated zucchini, ½ teaspoon vanilla, ½ teaspoon almond extract

Sift together, then add: 3 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking soda, ¾ teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon nutmeg, ½ teaspoon cinnamon

Mix in: 2 cups raisins, 1 cup walnuts

Spoon into 2 greased loaf pans lined with wax paper or parchment paper. Bake 75 minutes at 350°.

Bread Machine Seedy Bread by Erythrosine

1.25 cups water
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons molasses
2 tablespoons honey
2 cups unbleached bread flour
1 cup whole wheat flour (preferably the King Arthur 100% whole grain white wheat)
1.5 teaspoons salt
2.25 teaspoons instant yeast (or 1 package active dry yeast)
2 tablespoons poppy seeds
3 tablespoons raw sunflower seeds
3 tablespoons raw sesame seeds
2 tablespoons wheat gluten

Add all ingredients to pan in any order. (Measure the oil before the honey and the molasses, using the same measuring cup. Two tablespoons equals half of a quarter-cup measure.) Set the bread machine to "sweet" setting and select "light" crust, as the molasses and honey make it a dark crust in any case. (Recipe based on "Seeduction", without the raw millet seeds, which hurt my teeth.) If you want this to be ready for breakfast, using the timer, put the water in first, make a pile of the flours on top, and place the yeast in a slight depression on top of the flours, so the yeast won't get wet and start growing until the bread is mixed.

Mango Bread by B Johnsen

(makes 3 loaves)

Cream: 1.5 c butter or oil, 2.5 cups sugar

Beat in: 6 eggs, 2 t. vanilla, 0.5 t. coconut extract

Combine: 4 c. flour, 1 t. salt, 4 t. baking soda, 3 t. cinnamon

Add dry ingredients to wet alternately (in thirds) with: 4 c. mango puree

Stir in: 1 c. chopped nuts

Bake in greased 9x5x3 loaf pans @350 for 1 hour

My own variations: I make one loaf at a time, use canola oil, a little less sugar, no coconut, all whole wheat flour, walnuts. I replace part of the mango with a very ripe banana if I have one, and I dice the mango rather then puree because I like the little chunks in the bread. And I put a strip of parchment paper across the bottom and up the long sides of the pan for easy release after baking.

Lemon Pancakes by shell

OK, here's the pancake recipe. It's from "Joy of Cooking"; I love their basic and buttermilk pancake recipes too.

LEMON PANCAKES

Whisk together in a large bowl:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Whisk together in another bowl:
3/4 cup sour cream
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 large egg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and whisk together, mixing just until combined.

Fold in: grated zest of 2 lemons

They're delicious with a little honey drizzled on top.

Crusty Bread by kat167

Crusty Bread Recipe

The only complicated part is timing. You need 3 hours the first day, overnight refrigeration, then 5 hours the second day.

DAY 1

Put into your cobalt blue KitchenAid:

2 cups bread flour (you can taste the difference) 1 cup water, room temp ¼ teaspoon yeast.

Using dough hook, mix at low speed until it looks mixed. Dump into a bowl, cover with plastic wrap for 3 hours, then refrigerate at least 8 hours and up to 24. [overnight]

DAY 2

Take out your dough from DAY 1 and leave it on the counter.

Put into your cobalt blue KitchenAid:

3 cups bread flour 1 ¼ cup water, room temp 1 teaspoon yeast

Using dough hook, mix at low speed until it looks mixed. Stop, cover with plastic wrap, and let it sit for 20 minutes.

Then, unwrap plastic (heh), add DAY 1 dough plus 2 teaspoons salt to KitchenAid bowl mix, and mix at low speed for 1-2 minutes. Turn up to next click on KitchenAid, and beat for 3-4 minutes. Dump dough into a big bowl, re-use your two sheets of plastic to cover, then let it sit on counter. [Write down the time!—it’s easy to forget how many times you’ve turned the bread]

1 hour later: turn the dough by folding top down one third, bottom up one third, then turning it over from left side onto right (into halves). Basically, work it gently. Re-cover with plastic.

1 hour later, repeat.

1 hour after that, gently scrape the dough onto a floured surface, pat into 9-10 inch square, then fold left corner down to middle, right corner down to middle, then top part over so it looks like a big fat loaf of bread. Using dough scraper, slice down the middle into two loaves, then gently and quickly shape them into rough loaf shapes. Place on parchment paper, slide onto peel or flat cookie sheet, flour tops LIBERALLY, and re-use that same old plastic to cover them.

Meanwhile, put baking stone in oven on rack so that bread is close to the middle of the oven but has room to rise, and set oven to 500 degrees.

An hour later, take off plastic, slash bread, dump some cold water on ‘em, and slide parchment paper’d loaves onto baking stone. Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce temp to 400 degrees and spin loaves around. They’ll bake for another 20-30 minutes. Cool on racks.

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Gluten-free raisin bread by Erythrosine

Mix together:

4 cups of self-rising white cornmeal (which has baking powder and salt in it, see below)
3 cups of milk
4 tablespoons of melted butter
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup raisins (about)
1/2 cup sunflower seeds (about)
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Bake in a greased 9x13" pan at 450°F for 30 minutes.

Self-Rising Cornmeal by Li
Here's a recipe for self-rising cornmeal from the Aunt Jemima website:

For one cup of self-rising cornmeal:

1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup + 3 tablespoons Quaker or Aunt Jemima Corn Meal

Waffles by Alecto the Night Owl

Here is H's Waffle recipe. Makes 5 waffles.

2 1/2 c unbleached flour
4 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp sugar
2 beaten eggs
2 1/4 c milk
3/4 c vegetable oil

Mix ingredients in order. Pour 3/4 c batter (for Belgian waffles) into waffle iron.

Microwaved Old-Fashioned Oatmeal by Erythrosine

Microwaving oatmeal is great, because once you've worked out the time for your own microwave oven, you can start it cooking and then go off and take a shower or something. The unwatched pot does not burn.

The first step is to buy OLD FASHIONED type oatmeal. The more refined and finely flaked oatmeal is, the more it tastes like library paste. One-minute oatmeal is not as tasty as old fashioned oatmeal, and instant oatmeal is almost entirely identical to library paste. Microwave cooking old-fashioned oatmeal is no more trouble than instant oatmeal, though it takes longer, so you might as well get the good stuff. Of course you can first use up whatever you have by cooking it in the microwave, following the instructions on the package.

Next step is to determine how long it takes your oven to bring two cups of water to a boil (or whatever volume of water you're going to use). Mine takes four minutes.

I measure one cup of oatmeal into my 2+ quart bowl (you need extra room to prevent boilovers), then use the same cup to measure twice that volume of water. Add a light sprinkling of salt, unless you're avoiding it. Consider adding some raisins, or pitted prunes if you like them. Then set the microwave to cook it for twice the water-boiling time at 50% power. So, in my microwave, for two cups of water plus one cup of oatmeal, that's 8 minutes at 50% power. Do not put a lid or any other cover on the oatmeal! Doing so may cause a boil-over, which is a mess.

Corn meal mush is also very good and easy cooked in the microwave, although the amount of butter in the Microwave Gourmet cookbook is truly excessive. (I do strongly recommend the Microwave Gourmet cookbook by Barbara Kafka; note that the Microwave Gourmet Healthstyle Cookbook is NOT what you want, even if you're into healthy food, which I am.) And the latest thing, according to the LA Times, is stone ground old-fashioned grits which is supposed to be vastly tastier than the instant variety. (Note: "grits" is singular, according to my husband's Alabama relatives.)