Quick Breads History by Maya Corrigan Potluck Monday

Photo by Craig David via Pixabay

Bread was leavened with yeast for most of human history, but alternatives to yeast became popular in the last few centuries. Native Americans introduced settlers to pearl ash, a yeast alternative. The first American cookbook writer, Amelia Simmons, included bread recipes made with pearl ash (potash) in her American Cookery. Published in 1796 and reprinted multiple times in the following decades, American Cookery isn't just the first cookbook published in the U.S., but probably the one with the longest title.

Library of Congress 

Pearl ash, which didn’t dissolve easily and or work well for batters with a lot of fat, was largely replaced in the mid-19th century by baking soda and baking powder. These products gave rise to quick breads (pun intended).

Unlike yeast, baking powder and baking soda react immediately when exposed to a liquid, so you don’t have to wait for the dough to rise. In fact, you’re supposed to bake quick breads as soon as you combine all the ingredients. Irish soda bread is one of the original quick breads, dating back to the 1840s, when baking soda was introduced into Ireland.

Here's a selection of quick bread recipes from the Mystery Lovers' Kitchen archives. Several of them are perfect for the Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas holidays.

Coffee Can Pumpkin Bread by Jenn McKinlay

Lemon Zucchini Bread by Valerie Burns

Krista Davis’s raspberry quick bread

Thanksgiving Irish Soda Bread by Sheila Connelly

Savory Quick Bread shared by Lucy Burdette

Coffee Can Pumpkin Bread

Raspberry Quick Bread

Savory Quick Bread

What is your favorite quick bread? Mine is banana nut.

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Maya Corrigan writes the Five-Ingredient Mysteries featuring café manger Val and her live-wire grandfather solving murders in a Chesapeake Bay town. Maya lives in a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Before writing crime fiction, she taught American literature, writing, and detective fiction at Northern Virginia Community College and Georgetown University. When not reading and writing, she enjoys theater, travel, trivia, cooking, and crosswords.

Halloween is on the horizon . . .

CRYPT SUZETTE: ​​When a murder masquerades as an accident, Granddad's ghost-busting and Val's foray into a haunted house turn up clues to the killer. 

THE TELL-TALE TARTE: When Val serves a dessert at a book club dinner, she uncovers a fraud that embroils her and Granddad in a murder among deadly serious Edgar Allan Poe fans. 

Visit my website for easy recipes, mystery history and trivia, and a free culinary mystery story.

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