Quarantine baking

If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I’ve become a quarantine cliché when I started baking bread with sourdough starter back in April. I’ve kept a weekly baking schedule since then, which is my longest bread baking streak yet, and I am not planning to stop anytime soon.

But, not surprisingly, quarantine has led to a lot of other baking shenanigans as well. I baked a couple of favorites but also tried a few new recipes. In case you need some inspiration, read on, I am sharing a few, but not all of my recently baked goodies!

Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

I used this recipe and ditched the vanilla extract and substituted with 2-3 tbsps of lemon extract (lemon juice is not lemony enough. Go ahead and stick your finger in the batter to try!). I also did not soak the poppyseeds (never have, but wonder how much of a difference it would make. Anyone?).

Lemon poppyseed muffins are my favorite and these were delicious. You also might be interested to know that they freeze very well (however, freeze them without the lemon glaze that I put on some of them!). I wrapped them individually in aluminum foil and then I’d just take one out in the morning and it would be ready to eat in about 1 hour. 

Lemon Yogurt Zucchini Bread

I don’t know about you, but I feel like you can never go wrong with zucchini bread. Regular zucchini bread is delicious as is, but have you tried adding yogurt and lemon for a twist? It makes it fresh and light, and it just tastes really good.

This recipe has made it into my recipe binder, which means it’s been tried and tested, and it has been repeatedly baked at our house.

Sweet Yeast Bread

Sweet yeast bread is something I grew up with. It’s traditionally baked for Easter and New Year’s where I am from in Germany, but it was also regularly served at my parents’ house for Sunday breakfasts (with a soft-boiled egg) when I grew up.

This is my mom’s recipe and it will always remind me of home. The bread is soft and only slightly sweet and so good that you’ll only want a bit of butter with it, if anything.

Sourdough Yogurt Blueberry Crumble Cake

I am a big fan of crumble cake (with any kind of fruit! I actually baked a version with rhubarb, too!), but this recipe (which I adapted from a recipe I found online) calls for sourdough discard (of which I had plenty sitting in the fridge).

You might also have noticed that I am a fan of putting yogurt into baked goods and it hasn’t failed me yet. This turned out so yummy. The crumb was spongy, soft, and really moist and the crumbles on top are always a nice addition. 

Almond Butter Cookies

I don’t have a recipe for these to link up, but these cookies were just made from four ingredients and I’ll share the recipe soon if you’re interested.

They were just the right amount of crunchy and are so quick to make. I whipped them up in just 15 minutes. They were the perfect little treat with my mid-morning second cup of coffee.

Raisin-Walnut-Honey-Sourdough Loaf

I was looking for ways to use up some of my sourdough discard and came across this recipe. It actually uses active sourdough starter, not discard, but it looked so damn good, that I still had to try it. It’s like a variation of the sweet yeast bread without the yeast.

I tweaked the original recipe a little bit because it used pecans and I usually don’t have pecans at home, but walnuts work just as well. It was absolutely delicious. I’ll definitely bake this bread again, and you should, too.

German Plum Cake

My Mom told me that she made German plum cake recently, which of course, triggered a huge craving, so I set out on a hunt for ‘baking plums’ because you need a certain type of plum for German plum cake. After some research, I had found out that the plums I was looking for are called Empress (or Italian) plums and they’re usually only available for a few weeks every season. They’re a European kind and they’re usually turned into prunes. 

Finding the right fresh plums here wasn’t easy but I got lucky at our local Farmer’s Market. I made an adapted version of this recipe and, obviously, had to make some homemade whipped cream to go with it. (Now my freezer is full of a couple of more squares for later.)

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As you can tell, I am a tweaker. I hardly ever stick to a recipe but often try to make it my own. 

What have you been baking? Any recipes you’d like to share?

  1. Oooh Zwetschgendatschi (as it is called where I’m from), now I’m drooling, haha. I have to find plums this weekend, and bake! I also want to try the lemon poppyseed muffins. I haven’t really tried new recipes lately and tend not to bake much during the summer anyway to keep the house cool, but we used our ice cream maker quite a bit. I can’t say I look forward to the cooler temps, fall, and winter, especially not this year, but baking will definitely help to make it through!

    1. I usually also don’t bake much during the summer month to keep the house cool, but since I’ve been baking bread regularly on Sunday mornings, I took advantage and threw some other baked goods in afterwards because the oven was already in use ;)

  2. Yum! All of that baking looks so good! I have never heard of soaking poppyseeds for a recipe. My mom has made several poppyseed recipes and I am pretty sure she never soaked them! I don’t do much baking in general since GF stuff is often kind of meh. But I’ve baked with Paul the last 2 weekends which has been really fun. I want to try to keep doing it but will need to make things that Phil/Paul will eat because carbs will be pretty off limits for me when I start the gestational diabetes diet later this week. Womp womp.

    1. Good to know that you also never heard of soaking poppyseeds before baking. Ha. I think there is a ready-to-use poppyseed filling that you can buy in Germany… maybe that’s where soaking the seeds comes from… or I’ve often heard that people “grind” them before using them in baked goods. Either way, that wasn’t necessary in this case.

  3. For sure I’d love to see the almond butter cookie recipe. And I might just have to make those lemon poppyseed muffins…I think my stepsons would like them as well so I wouldn’t have to worry about freezing them;-)

    My family’s favorite baked goods are chocolate chip cookies and chocolate chip banana bread muffins, so I make those pretty frequently, though I’m not really that crazy about either of those. I made some millionaire bars last month (shortbread topped with caramel and a thin layer of chocolate) and those were more my speed. I might just have to make another batch soon.

    1. I’ll share the cookie recipe next week! :)

  4. Zwetschgenkuchen!!! Omg so so good. It reminds me of my oma in Germany ❤️ So many amazing recipes here, San! Thanks for sharing: I would love to try that zucchini bread and super bummed I don’t have any zucchini’s in the house right now!

    1. Yes! The Zwetschgenkuchen reminds me so much of Germany and I am so glad it does the same for you :) and I hope you get to bake some zucchini bread soon… hehe…

  5. Can you please come to Kentucky and bake for me? These all look amazing. I’m especially drooling over the raisin walnut honey sourdough loaf. Yum.

    1. Haha, maybe I can send some through mail? Although, I wouldn’t rely on it right now…. ;) the raisin walnut sourdough loaf definitely was one of my favorite recent bakes!

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