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.

📚

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.

Follow me on Facebook.

📚

Sweet Coffee-Glazed Mini Scones and a St. Pat's Cat from Cleo Coyle

My husband, Marc, and I made a new friend this past weekend. On St. Patrick's day, an abandoned kitten, about six months old, was obviously lost and hungry and mewing piteously for hours. 

Cleo Coyle, who loves cats
in (and out of) hats,
is author of The Coffeehouse
Mysteries

No one came to his aid, so we took him in, fed him, and got him to our local vet. He's doing fine and will soon be the newest member of our New York stray cat crew. I'll have photos and more news soon, but we're so pleased the little guy found us--and on St. Patrick's Day!

The video below is not mine, but when I saw it uploaded to YouTube, I thought of our new kitten and decided to share it in honor of our St. Pat's cat. Enjoy!

I also did a bit o' baking over the St. Patrick's Day weekend. As usual, I made my "Shamrock" Pistachio Muffins. (I love these babies. The batter tastes like pistachio ice cream and the ricotta adds nice moistness to the muffin, along with additional nutrition. And, of course, they're green. :))

I also baked up some sweet mini soda breads or are they buttermilk scones? You be the judge. I threw in some mini chocolate chips and tarted them up with a quick coffee glaze. Delicious slathered with butter and served with tea or coffee, just be sure to eat them warm. Cold they're not so hot, but warm they're a nice breakfast bread.

Cleo Coyle's
Coffee-Glazed 
Mini Soda Bread Scones


This is an easy, sweet breakfast bread. The recipe is based on your basic Irish soda bread. With the addition of sugar and chocolate chips, it's really more of a buttermilk scone. They're easy to make and quite tasty when eaten warm with a cup o' tea or (of course...) coffee. ~ Cleo


Makes about 16 mini soda bread scones


2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons Kosher salt
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
1 cup buttermilk (light is fine)


First preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. Measure out all dry ingredients into a mixing bowl. Pour in your 1 cup of buttermilk. Stir it up. When the mixture comes together, use a clean hand to finish mixing and kneading it in the bowl until you have a sticky ball. Break off golf ball size pieces and place them on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake in a preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes. Pour your coffee or tea and serve warm, slathered with butter. For an extra sweet finish, glaze them up.


Quick Coffee Glaze


Using a fork, whisk 2 tablespoons of hot brewed coffee (or espresso) into 1 cup of sifted confectioners' sugar. With that same fork, drizzle the tops of the mini scones. 


NOTE: These are delicious warm, not so hot cold, so be warned. :)

F o o d i e
P  H O T O S

             

Eat with joy!

~ Cleo Coyle, author of

The Coffeehouse Mysteries

To get more recipes, enter to win
free coffee, or learn about my books, including
my bestselling Haunted Bookshop series, visit my online coffeehouse: CoffeehouseMystery.com

The Coffeehouse Mysteries are national bestselling

culinary mysteries set in a landmark Greenwich Village 

coffeehouse, and each of the ten titles includes the 

added bonus of recipes. 

 

The Ghost and
Mrs. McClure

Book #1 of 
The Haunted Bookshop
Mysteries, which Cleo writes
under the name Alice Kimberly
To learn more, click here.

MURDER 203

Quick reminder to our Mystery Lovers Kitchen audience: Cleo Coyle and Lucy Burdette are appearing at MURDER 203!

If you're attending the MURDER 203 festival of mystery next month in Easton, Connecticut, be sure to stop by and say hi. You can register in advance or walk in the same day. More info about the conference here.

See you there!

The neighborly thing to do...egg nog quick bread!

Every year my neighbor bakes
cookies, really good ones, and then lovingly

wraps them and brings them over. How

thoughtful, kind and yummy and a true

symbol of the spirit of the season.

And every year, I am caught with nothing

prepared to give return. You'd think I'd catch

on and plan ahead, but no, that's just not who

I am. I have come to embrace my ill preparedness

and consider it a challenge to my creativity instead

of a character flaw.

So when the cookies arrived this year and I was again

stumped (I'd already doled out my peppermint bark

-- see last week's post) this was my solution:

Egg Nog Quick Bread

For those of you "creative" souls out there like

me, this bread is delish and can be whipped up pretty

quickly for those days when you get caught

unprepared!

Ingredients
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup eggnog
2 teaspoons rum extract
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 1/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease bottom only of a

loaf pan.
Blend together the eggs,

eggnog, rum extract, sugar,

vanilla and butter.
Sift together the flour, baking

powder, salt and nutmeg.

Add to eggnog mixture and stir just enough to moisten;

pour into prepared pan. Bake bread in large pan for 50 to 55 minutes, or

until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely, wrap

tightly and store in refrigerator.

*Tip: It looks smashing wrapped in red cellophane with a big old bow slapped on it!

Happy Holidays!

Jenn

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