Lassy Raisin Bread #BreadBakers

This Lassy Raisin Bread is made with molasses, whence comes the name. It is a classic recipe from Newfoundland, often enjoyed during the holidays. It's a lovely soft loaf that is delicious plain and even better toasted and buttered!

The end of the year has snuck up on me and I can’t imagine I’m the only one who feels that way. I was determined to find time to bake bread for this final Bread Bakers event though because I have finally figured out where to buy fresh yeast here in Houston (YAY!) and I just love how it smells and tastes in freshly baked bread. 

I chose to make this particular loaf because 1. My husband loves raisin bread, especially when it’s toasted and buttered and 2. this month my Bread Baker friends and I are sharing holiday breads from around the world. 

There are probably as many recipes for Newfoundland lassy or molasses bread as we have neighbors to my very north, but one thing they all have in common is the requisite molasses, generally the milder unsulphured kind, and raisins. The traditional loaves are shaped by making three balls of the dough and placing them in a row in a bread pan. 

Lassy Raisin Bread

My recipe is adapted from one on Rock Recipes which makes a very impressive FOUR loaves. They really, really love their lassy raisin bread! And once you've tried a slice, you'll see why.

Ingredients

1/4 cup or 60ml lukewarm water

1 1/2 teaspoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon active dry yeast or 20g fresh yeast

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 - 3 cups or 312-375g flour, plus extra for kneading

1/3 cup or 80ml lukewarm milk

1/4 cup or 60ml molasses

5 teaspoons cooled melted butter, plus extra for brushing the baked loaf, optional

1 egg, beaten lightly

3/4 cup or 100g raisins

Method

In the bowl of an electric mixer that has a dough hook, stir the yeast and brown sugar into the lukewarm water and then let stand without stirring for 10 minutes. It should get nice and fluffy if your yeast is alive.

Add in 1 cup or 125g of the flour along with the salt, butter, warm milk and the beaten egg.

Using the regular paddle of your electric mixer, mix slowly for 4-5 minutes until the mixture is smooth with no lumps. Whoops, almost forgot our namesake molasses! Add that in and beat again. 

Switch to the dough hook at this point and begin to slowly incorporate the remaining flour. 

You may not need to use all of the flour. This is a soft dough that’s supposed to be a little sticky.  

Add the raisins at this point and continue to mix with the bread hook until the raisins are evenly distributed throughout the dough.

Place the dough in a large bowl and cover the bowl with cling film or a damp tea towel. 

Leave it to rest and rise for two hours. 

Punch the dough down and knead it for a few minutes by hand on a lightly floured work surface.

Divide the dough into three even pieces. I use my scale here to weigh the whole dough then divide by three. My dough weighed 760g so each ball weighed about 253g. Form each piece into a nice round ball. 

Line a medium loaf pan with baking parchment. (Mine was 9 x 5 in or 23 x 13cm.) 

Place the 3 balls of dough in your prepared loaf pan. 

Cover with greased cling film and allow the dough to rise until it is about 2 inches or 5cm above the rim of the pan, about 1 1/2 - 2 hours, depending on room temperature. 

[As you can see from the photo, pretty sure I overproved mine, making a strategical error when I decided I had time to nip out to the grocery store for salmon. Reader, as it turned out, I did not. While I was disappointed in the outside looks of this wonderful bread, the flavor and soft, tender crumb consoled me.]

Bake at 350°F or 180°C for about 40 minutes. The top and bottom crust should have good color. I tented mine halfway through with foil because it was browning so quickly. Check on yours in case you might want to do the same. 

Once baked, turn the loaf out onto a wire rack to cool. 

Brush the top with melted butter, if desired, to soften the top crust. Also, more butter is always better was one of my mom's rules. She was a very clever woman.

Leave to cool completely before slicing to serve. I'm trying to think of it as "rustic," not misshapen.

Enjoy! 

It’s the second Tuesday of the month which, as I mentioned above, means it’s time for my Bread Bakers to share their recipes. Many thanks to Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm for hosting and for choosing this lovely theme. Check out all the international holiday breads below. 

• Passion Kneaded: Christopsomo (Greek Christmas Bread) 
• A Messy Kitchen: Joululimppu 
• The Wimpy Vegetarian: Julekake : A Norwegian Christmas Bread 
• Food Lust People Love: Lassy Raisin Bread 
• A Day in the Life on the Farm: Laufabraud 
• Zesty South Indian Kitchen: Sourdough bobalki (Slovak Christmas eve bread) 
• Sneha's Recipe: Vánočka/Vanocka - Czech Christmas Bread 
• Karen's Kitchen Stories: Venezuelan Christmas Ham Bread - Pan de Jamón

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

Pin this Lassy Raisin Bread! 

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Mom’s Golden Cornbread #BreadBakers

My mom’s golden cornbread is a family favorite, fluffy and delicious. It’s made from scratch but is just about as easy as the packets. 

Way back in 2005, my eldest daughter was in the kitchen a lot, working on some project. I finally asked her what the challenge was. She allowed that she had been looking for cornbread recipes online but just couldn’t find a good one. 

I suggested that she email her grandmother, the family expert in corn bread baking. She duly did.

And she received this reply, along with the recipe I am sharing today. 

Mom’s Golden Cornbread

I’ve added the metric equivalents but the rest is all my mom’s instructions. She did like to bake in her iron skillet but knowing we didn’t have one back then, she didn’t include that option in the original recipe.

Ingredients

1 cup or 150g yellow cornmeal

1 cup or 125g all-purpose flour

2 – 4 tablespoons sugar (To go with chili, I use only two)

4 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup or 240ml milk, sometimes I will add a tiny bit more milk if I find it too thick

1 egg

1/4 cup or 60ml vegetable oil like canola (do not use olive oil)

Method

Preheat oven to 425°F or 218°C.  In a large bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. 

Add milk, egg and oil. 

Beat until fairly smooth, about one minute.  

Scrape bottom and sides well. Bake in greased 8-inch baking pan for 20-23 minutes or until lightly browned on top. 

I like to put some oil in my baking pan first and then put it in the oven to get the oil really hot, then I add the batter and bake.  This gives a nice bottom to the cornbread.

(My edit: I always do this, putting the pan with a little oil in the oven for five minutes before pouring in the batter. You can see how it sizzles when I add the batter.)

You can insert a toothpick in the middle to test for doneness. 

I will add here that Mom loved her cornbread amply buttered and often topped with Steen’s Cane Syrup which hails from her mom’s hometown of Abbeville, Louisiana. Made the old-fashioned way by boiling down cane juice until it is thick, Steen’s is the syrup of choice in Cajun Country. It is great in cakes, on biscuits, pancakes and cornbread.

Enjoy! 

This is the second Tuesday of the month which means it's time for my Bread Bakers to share recipes. Our theme is cornbread, or corn bread, if you prefer. Many thanks to our host, Dorothy from Shockingly Delicious. Check out the links below. 

• Candied Ginger Cornbread (with crystallized ginger) from Shockingly Delicious
• Corn Free Skillet Corn Bread from A Messy Kitchen
• Corn Meal Batty Cakes from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Cornbread Cupcakes from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Easy Cowboy Cornbread Casserole (Vegetarian Dinner) from The Wimpy Vegetarian
• Gluten-Free Hush Puppies (Fried and Air Fryer) from Cook with Renu
• Gluten-Free Sugar-Free Cornbread from Culinary Cam
• Mom's Golden Cornbread from Food Lust People Love
• Vegetarian Cornbread Casserole from Sneha's Recipe

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

Pin Mom's Golden Cornbread for later! 

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Classic Brioche à Tête #BreadBakers

This classic brioche à tête recipe is simple to make, with very little hands on time, no stand mixer required, for a loaf that is rich and buttery. Start one day ahead. 

I own two proper brioche pans, one from my years living in Paris and yet another, believe it or not, that was purchased in Cairo, Egypt, It was made by the French manufacturer Tefal though so I guess that makes it authentic. 

If you search the internet for brioche recipes, you will find literally millions and millions. Google says an estimated 25.000,000 in fact. All the top hits seem to be baked in regular rectangular loaf pans though.

I was determined to create a classic loaf using one of my pans. Took me a bit but I finally figured out where I was going wrong! I needed to search for brioche à tête or brioche à Parisienne. Who knew? In Paris the bakeries just said brioche or possibly grosse brioche and petite brioche (sometimes with flavor options) on the boards.

Here's a little fun fact for you: While brioche in proper French translates to sweet bun, colloquially, it also means beer gut. In case you have a friend who needs ribbing in French. 

Back to my quest: I was delighted to find a video by baker extraordinaire Anna Olson making little brioche buns where she showed the proper way to make the tête or head that is supposed to poke out on top. Is my tête too small? Absolutely. Live and learn. Next time I will make it bigger! 

Classic Brioche à Tête

You can warm the whole amount of milk (3 oz or 90ml) needed, use a portion to activate the yeast then pour the rest in when making the dough. Please note that you do need to start a day ahead of when you want to bake the brioche. This gives the dough the time it needs to chill, making it easier to handle. 

Ingredients

To activate the yeast:

2 tablespoons flour

1 teaspoon active dry yeast

1/4 cup or 60ml milk, warmed to body temperature

For the brioche dough:

2 1/2 cups or 312g flour

1 tablespoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

3 eggs

1 fl oz or 30ml milk, warmed to body temperature

3 oz or 85g butter, softened at room temperature, plus extra for greasing the pan

For the egg wash:

1 egg

2 tablespoons water

Method

Step one is to activate the yeast. Put the yeast in a small bowl with the flour and warm milk. Stir to combine, set aside while you get the dry ingredients together.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar and salt. 

Add the yeast mixture into the dry ingredients, along with the rest of the milk and the eggs. 

Stir with a stiff spoon or Danish whisk until well combined. 

Add in butter and mix again until it is completely incorporated.

The dough will be super sticky so tidy it up as best you can into a ball using a spatula. 

Cover the bowl with cling film and leave to rest at room temperature for one hour.

Put the bowl in the refrigerator for 12 - 24 hours to chill the dough. 

When you are ready to bake, generously butter your brioche pan with softened butter and a pastry brush. 

Turn the chilled dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and press it out. 

Fold it over a couple of times then shape it into a firm ball. 

Use the side of your hand to make an indentation near one end of the ball, like you are trying to form a neck and head of dough on a dough body. Make your small ball bigger than mine for a more authentic look to the finished brioche!

Use your fingers to create a hole through the dough.

Tuck the "head" under and up through the hole. This will give the brioche its classic shape with the knob on top. 

Place the formed dough into your prepared brioche pan. 

Cover with cling film (buttered or greased so that it doesn't stick to the dough as it rises) and leave to rise for about 2 hours. As it nears the end of rising time, preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C in a fan oven or 425°F or 218°C in a conventional oven.

Whisk the egg and water together to create the egg wash. 

Working from the outside inward, brush the brioche very lightly with the egg wash.

Transfer the pan to the preheated oven and bake for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350°F or 180°C in a convection oven or 375°F or 190°C in a conventional oven.

Continue baking until the brioche is deep golden brown and the internal temperature reaches 205°F on an instant-read thermometer, 25 to 30 minutes more.

Remove from the oven and let the brioche cool in the pan for just 5 minutes. Any longer and condensation starts to form and your crust won't be lovely and crisp. 

Unmold onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

Let the brioche cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing.

Enjoy! 

It’s the second Tuesday of the month so that means it’s time for my fellow Bread Bakers to share their recipes. Our theme today, you might have guessed, is brioche-style bread. Many thanks to our host Kelly of A Messy Kitchen. Check out the links below. 

• Almond Cream Brioche Buns from A Messy Kitchen
• Brioche Pull-Apart Loaf from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Classic Brioche à Tête from Food Lust People Love
• Individual Orange Cranberry Brioche from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Single Rise Brioche Dinner Rolls from Sneha's Recipe

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

Pin this Classic Brioche à Tête!

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Rosemary Onion Socca - Chickpea Flatbread #BreadBakers

This rosemary onion socca aka chickpea flatbread is super easy to make and even easier to devour. The crispy edges and golden bottom are superb. This had us standing around, picking up just one more piece. And maybe just one more. All right, this really is the last one! And it's gone.

Despite living in France for three years, I had never come across socca until a couple of years ago when I was researching gluten free recipes for another edition of Bread Bakers. It sounded delightful but I didn’t have any chickpea flour (and was too lazy to go shopping) so I chose to make something else. 

It popped back into my mind when our host for this month’s Bread Baker event chose flatbreads as our theme. As you can see from the photos, bread really doesn’t get any flatter than socca! There are no leavening agents so it doesn’t rise at all. 

I checked out several recipes for this French regional bread and while all of them had varying amounts of chickpea flour, water and oil, none had baking powder so I had to conclude that this is correct. 

Rosemary Onion Socca - Chickpea Flatbread

It’s best to start ahead by several hours or even the day before you want to make this as the batter needs time to be its best. This recipe is adapted from one on New York Times Cooking. If your local grocery store doesn't carry chickpea flour, try an Asian or Indian shop where it might be labeled besan or gram flour.

Ingredients

1 cup or 118g chickpea flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 cup or 240ml lukewarm water

4 to 6 tablespoons olive oil

½ medium onion

1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, small tender leaves or chopped bigger leaves

Method

Put the chickpea flour in a bowl; add the salt and pepper. Slowly add the lukewarm water, whisking to eliminate lumps. Whisk in 2 tablespoons olive oil. 

Cover or pour into a jar and let sit for 12 hours or overnight in the refrigerator. The batter should be about the consistency of heavy cream. I like using a clean pint jar which fits better in the refrigerator. It also makes mixing easier, as you’ll see later. 

When you are about ready to bake the socca, finely slice your onions. 

Heat two tablespoons of the olive oil in a large iron skillet and pan fry the onions until crispy, about 8-9 minutes. 

Add in most of the rosemary, reserving just a little for sprinkling on the socca before baking, and give it a quick stir. Fry for one minute. 

Remove the onions and rosemary from the pan and leave them to cool. 

Meanwhile, heat your oven to 450°f or 232°C. Once hot, add two more tablespoons of olive oil to the iron skillet and put it in the oven for about 5 minutes. 

Mix the onions and rosemary into your socca batter. (If you’ve also put your batter in a jar, this is super easy. Add them in, screw the lid on tight and give the jar a good shake.) 

Immediately pour the batter into the hot pan. Sprinkle on the reserved rosemary leaves. 

Bake for 10 -12 minutes, or until the socca is firm and the edges set.

Heat the broiler/grill and brush the top of the socca with 1 or 2 tablespoons of oil. 

Set the pan a few inches away from the heat source, and cook just long enough to brown it in spots. 

Cut the socca into wedges, and serve hot or warm.

Enjoy! 

Since it’s the second Tuesday of the month, it’s BreadBakers day! Many thanks to our host Kelly of Passion Kneaded who chose flatbreads as our theme. Check out all the links below. 

• Eggless Keto Naan from Sneha's Recipes
• Focaccia Bread Art from Passion Kneaded
• Magical Oreo Paratha from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Nan-e-Barbari from Ambrosia
• Rosemary Onion Socca - Chickpea Flatbread from Food Lust People Love
• Sourdough Pizza Bianca from Karen's Kitchen Stories

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

Pin this Rosemary Onion Socca

– Chickpea Flatbread!

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