Lisa Marsh 10/7/24 Lisa Marsh 10/7/24

Banana Bread No. 03

Lisa Marsh 9/1/24 Lisa Marsh 9/1/24

Pizza Rolls

Recipe for easy homemade pizza rolls. A homemade spin on a kid food favorite that the whole family will love. Easy and fast to make.

Easy homemade pizza rolls are a family favorite.

This post was updated Sept 2024.

How to make pizza rolls, from whatlisacooks.com

Pizza rolls are easy to make, kids love them, adults love them, and the possibilities for customizing are practically endless. I shared a picture on my Instagram and Facebook pages of my kids lunches with these pizza rolls and I got so many requests for the recipe!

Pizza rolls are one of my favorite things to pack for lunch - really anything in the pizza for lunch category is always a hit with the kids.

The full pizza rolls recipe is at the end of this post, so keep reading because I’ve got lots of handy tips for you about how to make these. But if you really want to just skip to this easy recipe, you can click the button below.

Jump to Recipe

Easy homemade pizza rolls are the perfect make ahead kid food.

You can make these with as little 3 items from your fridge, only a few minutes to put together.

You could totally go make some of these now and be eating them in 20 minutes - that's how fast! And as with most of my favorite recipes - the ingredients here are very flexible.

I think these might be one of the perfect kid foods.

They're small enough for little hands, they are not messy, they seem to travel and keep well, and - best of all - they taste like pizza!

A few tips about how I make these pizza rolls.

Because my goal with this recipe is to have something that comes together super fast and easy, I go with a packaged dough most of the time. Usually I use a can of crescent roll dough from Trader Joe's. But use any quick and easy dough you like.You could also use biscuit dough, or certainly if you have homemade dough, go for it!

If I'm buying pre-made dough I try to look for one that's not got too much nasty stuff in it. The TJ's brand is not too bad. It's not as easy to handle as some others (maybe because it's missing some of the chemical dough conditioners and junk), but for this recipe that's ok. You're not actually making crescent rolls with it.

For the sauce I used a canned pizza sauce or sometimes just plain tomato sauce. Any kind you like will do. I use traditional mozzarella for ours most of the time, but any flavor if cheese you like would be great too.

The amounts of the sauce and cheese are also flexible - it's really about your personal taste. Just don't add too much - you don't want to squish it all out when you cut.

These are such great kid food, my kids scarf them up.

But the husband and I eat our fair share too. I think they are a perfect make-ahead item for kids lunches.

Everybody loves homemade pizza rolls!

Let's be honest - a big green salad with a few of these on the side, doesn't that sound like a perfect weeknight dinner? These freeze great. Whenever I make them I always at least double the recipe and I put a bunch in the freezer.

It doesn't get any easier for packing a school lunch - to pull out a few of these, throw in a few carrots and a little fruit, and lunch is done.

Pizza Rolls Recipe

Author: Lisa Marsh, WhatLisaCooks.com

Easy Homemade Pizza Rolls

A crowd pleasing favorite!

ingredients:

Dough - 1 can of prepared crescent roll dough. Or any other dough of your choice.
A little flour (any kind will do - it's just for rolling the dough)
A few tablespoons of pizza sauce (or just plain tomato sauce)
About 1/3 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, or whatever cheese you like.
Other fillings of your choice - cut into small pieces (pepperoni, ham, veggies, etc.)

instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Prepare dough

Take the dough out of the can, sprinkle both sides with a little flour
Fold it over on itself once or twice (otherwise it's trying to come apart at the seams)
Roll out into a rectangle until it's about 1/4 inch thick

Add toppings

Spread pizza sauce or tomato sauce thinly and evenly across the whole piece of dough
Sprinkle cheese evenly
Add other toppings as desired

Roll and slice

Start rolling from the long edge, you want your final roll to be long and narrow. Try to get it as tight as you can without feeling like you're squishing it.
At this point if you've handled it a lot and you feel like your dough is getting too soft to slice, stick it in the fridge for 20 minutes or so to firm up.
Slice into 3/4 inch pieces with a very sharp knife.

Bake

Lay your cut rolls out evenly on a baking sheet - either spray with a bit of cooking spray or line with parchment
Bake at 350 for about 12-14 minutes, or until cheese is bubbly and dough is golden brown.

NOTES:

Double or triple or quadruple this recipe and make lots extra. These freeze great and are perfect for the lunch box.

Created using The Recipes Generator

Lisa Marsh 10/21/23 Lisa Marsh 10/21/23

Family Favorite scone recipe

Lisa Marsh 1/6/20 Lisa Marsh 1/6/20

Basic Bread and Pizza Dough Recipe

Every time I share our homemade bread pizza on social media I get asked for my dough recipe and I realized that after all these years I’ve never shared it - so it’s about time I got around to writing a blog post for you with my basic easy pizza and bread dough recipe. Keep reading for my recipe and lots of baking notes.

I think there’s a big myth in baking.

We’ve all been sold this idea that we must have extremely precise measurements and use very specific techniques or our recipes just won’t work out to be edible.

I’m here to tell you that this is a giant lie.

It’s just not true. The more I cook the more I realize that just about every recipe I’ve ever come across is actually quite forgiving. So you add a little too much flour, or not quite as much yeast, or slightly less sugar - that doesn’t mean your recipe is going to automatically fail. It might not be picture perfect, but it will still be good enough for a weeknight dinner and you will have learned a lot in the process. I’m sure there are very fussy and fancy French pastry recipes out there that require the exact to the gram amount of the exact perfect kind of milled flour and high fat butter, but honestly very few of us are cooking that kind of stuff. I promise you that probably 95% of the recipes you will come across in your everyday home cooking are really quite forgiving and flexible - and this kind of dough recipe certainly fits in that category.

This is a super simple recipe. It’s very flexible and not at all fussy, and really quick to throw together. I’ve evolved this recipe & method a lot over the years, and learned in the process that making this kind of dough is considerably easier and less precise than most recipes and cookbooks would have you believe.

I actually don’t even usually measure when I make this any more, I just eyeball it and add a bit more water or flour if it seems off. But I’ve measured out the basic ingredients for you so you have an easy starting point. Just remember that this can just be used as a starting point and you can - and should - adapt recipes to suit your personal taste and style. That’s what cooking is all about!

You don’t need fancy tools for this. I used to make dough in the food processor and mixer, but over the years I realized that doing it by hand is just as easy and really just as fast, and you end up with less stuff to wash. I can mix this dough up in a big bowl in less time that it would take me to get out my mixer or food processor, assemble it, mix the dough, put it in another bowl to rise, and then clean the appliance and put it away. Sometimes the old fashioned way is just the best.

The tools I use are a very large wide bowl (like a large wide pasta bowl), and a dough whisk. With this kind of bowl you can do all your kneading, mixing, and rising right in the bowl. It’s really the minimal amount of mess. The dough whisk isn’t strictly necessary, you can just use a wooden spoon, but I find that it helps with the early mixing.

The recipe is below. It’s really quite simple once you’ve done it a few times, but be sure to read through the whole thing so you understand the steps. Also don’t skip the notes at the end - there’s a lot of my knowledge from having done this for many years. If you still have questions after all that, feel free to comment or message me on Facebook or Instagram - I’m not quite as timely with responding to comments here on the blog.

Lisa's Basic Bread & Pizza Dough:

4 cups flour, plus extra for kneading if necessary (see notes about type of flour)
2+ teaspoons active dry yeast
1 Tablespoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1 1/2 cups lukewarm water

Instructions:

In a large wide bowl add the yeast, sugar, and warm water. Give this a quick stir to combine, and wait just a minute for your yeast to wake up. If you are sure that your yeast is fresh then you can skip this step, but I like to do it because I feel like it gives the dough a bit of a head start.
Add the flour and salt and give it a good stir to start it mixing together. Very quickly you will get to a point where it's no longer useful to stir and you will want to get in there with your hands. Get it together into a ball and start kneading.
You can knead by hand in your bowl. This is why I use a big wide bowl - I don’t even have to get my counter or another surface dirty for kneading. If you didn’t have a bowl wide enough to knead in, then you’ll want to put it out on a flat surface. If the dough still seems a bit too sticky, add more flour just a small handful at a time. You should be able to easily pick it up, folding and squeezing and pushing it together. After a few minutes of working it should start to feel smooth and tight. If you haven’t done a lot of kneading before, don’t worry about it. It’s a weird thing that just takes practice to get a feel for. You can probably find a few youtube videos if you really want to see how it’s done.
At this point I like to set it down and let it rest for a few minutes. Just leave it for 5 minutes or so while you clean up a little. Then come back to it and knead a bit more. It’s much easier to knead after a short rest.
Lay your nice round of dough down in your bowl and cover with plastic wrap to rise. You want it to at least double in size. I’ll say this takes about an hour on average, but rising time is going to really vary depending on your kitchen situation. If your room is very warm, it will rise faster. If it’s rising too fast you can stick it in the fridge to slow it down. Rising will take longer in a cold room. You can speed this up by turning on your oven and setting the bowl nearby.
After it’s risen to more than double, give it a good punch to deflate, and knead again for a couple of minutes
At this point you can decide if you are going for a full second rise or not. If you aren’t in a hurry, the extra rise will give it a bit nicer texture. But if you don’t have the time then you can absolutely go ahead and get it ready for how you are using it at this point.

For a loaf of sandwich bread:

Shape dough into an oblong blob and plop it into a lightly oiled loaf pan. You can also line the pan with parchment paper if you like.
Let it rise in the loaf pan, again until nearly doubled. I usually put just a little oil on top to keep it from drying out.
Once sufficiently risen, take a very sharp knife and cut a slit straight down the middle. Then spray the top with a bit or water or brush with melted butter, and I like to sprinkle a bit of coarse salt on top.
Bake in a 350 oven for one hour.

For a round loaf of crusty bread:

Shape into a nice round ball and set on a piece of parchment paper.
Put a large dutch oven in a preheated 450 degree oven to get hot.
When the dough has risen again use a sharp knife to cut slits across the top of the loaf.
Very carefully lift your risen loaf with the paper and set it into the heated dutch oven. Put on the lid and put it in the oven.
Bake for 45 minutes with the lid on, and remove lid to bake for 15 minutes more.
Carefully remove loaf from pan and allow to mostly cool before slicing.

For Pizza:

Divide dough into balls for pizza. If you want thick crust you can divide in half. We like our pizza with a very thin crust, so I divide this amount of dough into four balls.
Let the balls rest for a few minutes and then you can start rolling them out to your desired thickness and add toppings.
We bake our thin crust pizzas on parchment paper on a pizza stone in a 500 degree oven for 7-8 minutes.

Notes:

The flour can be any combination you like, but I recommend you start with white flour to get the hang of it. Bread flour will give you the best results, but all purpose flour works well too. After you’ve done it a few times and you’ve got the feel for the process, then experiment. Substitute in a bit of whole wheat flour, or add other flavorings or grains. For a simple sandwich loaf my typical combination is 2 cups white bread flour and 2 cups whole wheat flour. More wheat flour makes a denser loaf. More white flour makes it rise better and you get a lighter, more airy loaf.
If you want to make a whole wheat loaf, try adding a couple tablespoons of vital wheat gluten. Whole wheat flour has less gluten and won’t rise quite as well, so adding a bit back helps.
Salt is really a personal preference. We like ours salty. If you don’t want it salty, then use a little less than 1 tablespoon. You’ll also need to experiment with different types of salt. Some salts are more salty than others.
Less sugar is fine, but it will need more time to rise. The sugar just feeds the yeast.
Honey works too - and is nice with whole wheat - but you might not need all the water with a liquid sweetener. Try adding 1/4 cup of honey and reduce the water to 1 1/2 cups.
Cold water is fine, but it will also need more time to rise as it warms up. Using warm water helps kickstart the yeast.
Yes this works in a bread machine. I like to add 3 tablespoons of room temperature butter otherwise it sticks in my bread machine, and just use 3 1/2 cups of the flour.
I use this recipe for rolls also. Divide it into 12 little balls and let them rise on parchment. I like to brush them with a little butter on top and sprinkle a little salt. Bake for 30 minutes at 400.
Oven temperatures vary also - so it might take a few tries to find the right temp for your oven and for the size of bread you are baking.
Experiment with it! Try milk instead of water. Try adding a little oil or butter, add an egg. Try adding some herbs or cheese. Try juice or beer. The possibilities are endless, and the worst that can happen is you are out a few cups of flour and a couple teaspoons of yeast.

Enjoy!

Lisa Marsh 2/1/19 Lisa Marsh 2/1/19

Dutch Baby (German Pancake)

Dutch Baby / German Pancake Recipe

The pretty one in the cast iron pan has plums in it. I just sliced them and layered in a nice pattern right before putting it in the oven.

This is my new favorite breakfast to make for the family! It has all the qualities that I love in a recipe - it's easy, it's fast, it's versatile, and most of all, everybody loves it.

It is a variation of a traditional German dish, called a German Pancake. Some recipes call this kind of thing a Dutch baby, and my kids think that name is a crack up. Apparently the name came from a poor misspelling of the word Deutsch (which means German, in German). I read one source that said that smaller ones are called a Dutch Baby, and bigger ones are called a German Pancake. I don't know. My version is a combination of many different recipes I've tried over the years, I experimented with different variations and came up with a version that works well for us.

The Recipe

6 eggs
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
up to a cup of fruit if desired (blueberries, sliced peaches, sliced apples, etc.)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, or 375 convection. Put your pan or dish in the oven while it preheats. I usually use a full size casserole dish, or a big cast iron pan. Any good size oven proof dish should work. Alternately, you can use a muffin pan or even a popover pan. A good size pie or quiche dish would work too.

Dump all of the ingredients, except the butter and fruit (if using), in your blender. I use my Vitamix and it is amazing for this kind of thing because it whips it all up super fast with no lumps.

Nothing fancy here - just half a peach sliced and a handful of blueberries, and I left 1/3 plain for the kid that doesn't like fruit cooked in things.

When your pan or dish is hot, put the butter in the pan to melt. My butter is always cold, so I usually toss it in the pan and let it melt in the oven for a minute. Once melted, just swirl the dish around a bit to get it all coated with melted butter.

Once the batter is blended and the butter is melted, just pour your batter into your hot pan. If you are adding fruit, now is the time. If you want to make it pretty, you can carefully line up slices of fruit in a nice pattern. Or you can just sprinkle a handful of blueberries and call it good. Sometimes I just put fruit on half of it, because I have one child who prefers it plain.

And now stick it in the oven! I do mine in my convection, so 375 convection for about 17 minutes is about right. But it's going to depend on the size of your pan and how accurate your oven is. Go for 15 minutes and then take a peek. It should be puffed up and nicely brown around the edges, and no longer wet in the middle. If it's not quite there, give it a few more minutes.

When you take it out of the oven it will sink pretty quickly. So if you want to impress your guests, just make sure they are at the table when you bring it out.

Variations:

This one was made with a gluten free flour blend.

I've done this with AP flour, bread flour, whole wheat flour, and even a gluten free flour blend. Because the flour just gives it some density and holds it together, but doesn't actually rise, the type of flour doesn't really seem to matter. A friend of mine made it with a grain free cassava flour and she said it was also great. If you try it with a different kind of flour, definitely let me know how it turns out!
I use maple syrup to sweeten because I like the taste, but I've also made it with honey or just regular white sugar. Also great.
If you like cinnamon, add a teaspoon. This would be especially great if you are adding sliced apples on top.
A lot of recipes you see for these call for powdered sugar on top. I don't bother because I don't think we need it, but if you like that and you want to make it look a bit more fancy, go for it. Just sprinkle on top right before serving.
When I make it plain with no fruit, we love to have a little homemade jam on top. It's delicious that way.

This is so easy, but looks impressive and makes breakfast feel special without doing a lot of work. It's great for feeding a crowd, because you can whip up a couple of them in just a few minutes. I like this recipe better than some others because it has more eggs, so it seems a little richer, and gives the kids a decent amount of protein in a breakfast that tastes like a treat.

I think you could even mix up your batter the night before if you want, and just give it a quick stir an pour in your pan in the morning. It would be great for a Christmas or Easter or other holiday morning, because it seems so fancy and special, but really is minimal time in the kitchen for the cook.

Same batter, just poured in muffin pans. It worked just the same and the kids loved the little personal size!

Lisa Marsh 2/1/19 Lisa Marsh 2/1/19

Pancake muffins

I love a good cooking shortcut - or I guess we call them "hacks" these days. So here is one of my favorite breakfast hacks: muffins made from pancake batter.

Muffins made from pancake batter? Yes! It totally works.

pancake batter muffins | whatlisacooks.com

pancake batter mini muffins | WhatLisaCooks.com

When I make pancakes I always make extra batter.

If you look at my breakfast for lunch posts, you'll see that we make a lot of lunches with leftover pancakes. Pancakes refrigerate well and freeze great and they are a perfect item to have on hand for quick and easy breakfasts and lunches.

But sometimes I get about halfway through the batter and I'm just feeling done with standing over the stove and cooking pancakes.

So I take the rest and just make muffins!

All you do is fill greased (or paper lined) mini muffin pans with the batter and then top as you like.

These work best with mini muffin pans because pancake batter is lighter than regular muffin batter, so bigger muffins fall a little and don't look quite as pretty. But bite sized pancake muffins are perfect. You can make them plain, or you can dress them up. I like to fill all the spots with batter, and then add stuff to the top.

In this batch you can see that I did three different flavors. I put a couple of blueberries in some, a big frozen raspberry in the middle of some, and the rest I just sprinkled with a little cinnamon sugar.

They are so good - light and moist and just perfectly sweet enough. They are the perfect size for little hands and small enough to just pop in your mouth, and they make a great portable breakfast.

pancake muffin bites | whatlisacooks.com

As for the pancake recipe - I make my own. Pancakes are so easy to make from scratch, it's almost silly. You can read my pancake recipe here. You'll note in my recipe that I say that the butter is optional, but I think it's necessary for muffins - it really helps to keep them from sticking. If you don't want to take the time to melt and cool butter, I've substituted vegetable oil for the butter and they still come out great.

You can totally do this with a store bought pancake mix if you prefer, I would just gently suggest that you try to find one with no artificial ingredients. For extra tasty pancakes, I always add a little maple syrup to the batter. This makes them taste great on their own, which means that for a quick weekday breakfast or lunch you don't need to get out all that sticky syrup.

Pancake Muffins

Mixed pancake batter (be sure to include the butter or oil, and add a little extra sweetener)
oil of choice for muffin pans, or muffin cups
mini muffin pan
toppings / fillings of choice: berries, chocolate chips, cinnamon & sugar, etc.

Preheat oven to 350, or 325 convection. Grease mini muffin pans, or line with muffin papers.

Prepare your pancake batter as usual. Be sure to include the butter or oil called for in the recipe, and add a little extra sweetener. I usually sweeten my pancake batter with maple syrup. My recipe calls for enough syrup to make the batter nicely sweet without needing to add extra syrup when you eat them. But if you're using a different recipe, or a box mix, I would recommend that you add a few tablespoons of extra syrup or sugar.

Fill your muffin cups about half way with pancake batter. Add toppings as desired - a piece of fruit, a frozen berry, a little sprinkle of cinnamon sugar. Bake for about 15 minutes for mini muffins (time will vary depending on your oven temperature).

Enjoy!

~ Lisa

Lisa Marsh 2/1/19 Lisa Marsh 2/1/19

5 minute whole wheat drop biscuits

With simple ingredients and the use of a handy kitchen appliance, you can have fresh biscuits out of your oven in a half hour from start to finish - and in the oven in just 5 minutes from when you start. These are my current go-to when I am making a big pot of soup or stew and we want a little something to go with it. They are absolutely perfect for soaking up gravy and broth, and they are amazing just piping hot with a little butter. They are also perfect for my couple of picky kids, because even if they don't eat the soup or stew that I'm serving for dinner, they are at least getting something made with whole grain and the protein of yogurt, milk, and egg.

Easy 5 minute drop biscuits from WhatLisaCooks.com

Ingredients:

2 Cups of whole wheat flour
1 cup whole milk plain yogurt
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold butter, cut into cubes
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg

Directions:

Food Processor: Put everything except the flour the food processor bowl and process until blended, then add the flour and turn on again just until the flour is combined.

High Powered Blender: Put everything except the flour in the blender and blend until mixed. Measure flour into a separate bowl, pour the liquid mixture in, and stir/fold until just combined.

The key with either method is to not over process the flour, that will make them tough. The secret to light biscuits, even with whole wheat flour, is mix just enough to get all the flour combined, and no more. It's even ok if you have a few little spots of dry flour, because it will get absorbed as they bake. You can see in my picture below, these weren't perfectly mixed, there are spots of flour and spots of yogurt that aren't mixed in. But they came out perfect.

Once combined, use a medium sized cookie scoop to drop balls onto a parchment lined baking sheet. You can also do this with a spoon, but the cookie scoop is much faster. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes, until puffed and golden brown.

Notes:

You could do this with half whole wheat and half AP flour
I have made these with cottage cheese instead of yogurt and they are equally amazing. The cheese gets blended in, so the chunks are not an issue.
You could also use buttermilk instead of the combination of yogurt + milk. Just do 1 1/4 cup buttermilk.
I've used plain kefir instead of the milk also.
I pretty much always cook with salted butter.
Try adding a handful of grated cheese and/or some herbs to your finished dough!
I have also made this recipe as a loaf, and it's equally awesome and even faster. Just dump the whole batch of batter in a buttered loaf pan, and bake for about an hour. It's great as a side with a soupy dinner, and also great toasted - a perfect solution if you need a quick loaf. It's basically like a savory quick bread.

Easy drop biscuits made with whole wheat flour and yogurt, and in the oven in 5 minutes. WhatLisaCooks.com

Lisa Marsh 2/1/19 Lisa Marsh 2/1/19

Easy Quick Bread and Muffin Recipe

A master recipe for making all kids of quick and easy muffins or breads! This recipe is made with whole wheat flour, whole fruits and veggies, and no refined sugar (or very little, if you decide to add some). It is sweetened with just a little honey and the natural flavors of fruit. Best of all - it's made all in the blender, and takes less than 5 minutes from start until it's in the oven. It is so fast and easy, you are just not even going to believe it. This is not your grandma's banana bread - there is no need to let your butter or eggs come to room temperature, there is no creaming of butter and sugar. You aren't washing multiple bowls.

An easy recipe for quick bread and muffins that comes together super fast in the blender.

The easiest blender quick bread you will ever make. www.whatlisacooks.com

My kids love it when I make homemade breads and muffins - the climb all over each other to be the first one to get to the banana bread or carrot bread or pumpkin muffins. They get so excited when they see me mixing, or smell it baking, or see it come out of the oven. I can hardly make them wait until it's cool enough to eat. But I haven't been making it all that often, because it just seems like too much work and advance planning. I am no good at setting butter or eggs in advance out to get to room temp, and the creaming of butter and sugar seems like a lot of effort, and I can't stand the mess of all the bowls I need to wash. Sometimes it just seems like more trouble than it's worth. I've got a lot going on.

But I couldn't help but think that there had to be an easier way. There had to be a way to shortcut some of those steps. So I set out to figure it out.

My goals: it had to be easy, it had to be fast, but it still had to be relatively healthy. I wasn't going to trade off making it easier by using processed junk. So many quick bread recipes you see call for so much sugar, it's crazy. We need to just be honest with ourselves and call those things for what they are: they are cake. If a recipe has a couple of cups of sugar in it, it's not bread. It's cake. And don't get me wrong, I love cake. But not for an everyday staple, for a school day breakfast or an after school snack. So I had to come up with a recipe that was going to taste great but not be loaded with sugar. And I think I've done it!

This is it folks, the last quick bread recipe you will ever need.

This recipe is made with whole wheat flour, whole fruits and veggies, and no refined sugar (or very little, if you decide to add some). It is sweetened with just a little honey and the natural flavors of fruit. Best of all - it's made all in the blender, and takes less than 5 minutes from start until it's in the oven. It is so fast and easy, you are just not even going to believe it. This is not your grandma's banana bread - there is no need to let your butter or eggs come to room temperature, there is no creaming of butter and sugar. You aren't washing multiple bowls.

This. Is. Easy.

It's the perfect balance of hearty and sweet, with a little tang from plain yogurt. It's moist in the middle, just a little chewy and just a little crumbly, with a nice crunch of crust on the top. Spread a hot slice with some butter, or a little cream cheese, and I think you've got breakfast or snack time perfection.

What I have for you is a basic master recipe that can be used to make any number of flavors of quick bread. You can turn this into a super quick zucchini bread, banana bread, pumpkin bread, apple bread, carrot bread, or whatever else you like. I've tried it with all of those, and a number of combinations. I LOVE the combinations. I've made apple + carrot, carrot + pear, zucchini + banana, apple + carrot + chocolate chip. The combination of a little fruit and a little veggie gives a great flavor and just the right amount of sweetness. See the variations below for some suggestions of flavor combinations.

This is not a super sweet loaf, because that's how I like it. If you like your breads to be more sweet, then you'll want to increase the honey or add a little sugar (I included a bit of brown sugar in the ingredients as optional - read my note about it).

I recommend you read all the way through before starting. This is very easy, but the technique is a little different than what you are used to, so you want to read the directions before you just start tossing stuff in a bowl. This is still a basic "mix your wet, then mix your dry, the combine the two" type of situation, but the way you mix the wet and the way you combine are a little different.

Ingredients: (in the order in which I add them)

1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt (I use whole milk yogurt. Sour cream will work too)
Approximately 1 cup pureed fruit and/or veggies (apple, banana, carrot, zucchini, pumpkin, etc.). Or enough whole fruit & veg, roughly chopped, to make about a cup pureed. (see notes & variations below)
1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
optional: 1/4 cup brown sugar (see notes)
1-2 teaspoons cinnamon (see notes & variations)
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Oil spray or butter for the baking pan.
optional: up to a cup of chopped nuts, raisins, chopped fruit, or even chocolate chips!

Recipe makes 1 regular loaf, or 3 mini loaves, or 12 standard size muffins, or about 3 dozen mini muffins. I don't recommend doubling this with the blender method, the blender would be too full and it won't mix properly. But it's so fast and easy to mix up that making several at a time is no problem. I made 3 different batches in less than 15 minutes.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350, or 300 convection. Grease a loaf pan or a muffin pan. (Rub it with a bit of butter, or if you're in a hurry like me just hit it with a little spray oil. I use a coconut oil spray that I get at Trader Joe's.)

Mix together the "wet" ingredients:

In your blender, put honey, yogurt, and fruit and veggies. Pulse the blender until the fruit and veggies are mostly pureed and well blended. Check your quantity - if you are not at 2 cups, you can add a little more fruit and puree some more.

Add butter, egg, vanilla, cinnamon, and sugar if you are using it. Turn on blender to mix at a medium speed until the butter is blended in. This should only take a few seconds, unless your butter is super hard. Pulse it a few times, check to make sure the butter isn't still in a chunk. If you still have some big chunks of butter, then puree a bit more.

Mix together the "dry" ingredients:

In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt, and baking powder.

Combine wet and dry.

Method 1: all in the blender. You can do this all in the blender if you have a high powered blender. Just dump the flour mixture in, put the lid on tight, and turn it on at a high setting. On a Vitamix - this would be variable 9 or 10 - turn the dial to 9 or 10 and then pulse it on and off (don't start on low and turn it up, just start it on high). That will suck some of the flour down to the bottom. Then get in there with a spatula or spoon and stir a little, pulse again, stir a little. You are just trying to get the dry just mixed with the wet so there are no obvious areas of dry flour left. Don't overmix, you just want the flour moistened.

Method 2: in a bowl. You can also do this step in a bowl - just pour your wet mixture in the bowl with the dry, and gently stir until all the flour is moistened.

It should be a fairly thick batter. Pureed raw fruit will still release more moisture when it bakes, so you want to start out with a fairly thick batter in order to have a finished baked good that's not too moist. But if you think it really is too dry to mix together without having to work it too hard, then add a little more moisture. You can add up to a quarter cup of milk, or applesauce, or yogurt.

If you are adding any chopped nuts or fruit or chocolate chips, you will want to do this last step in a bowl. Pour the wet mixture over the dry, add your nuts or chocolate chips, and fold it all together until combined.

Then dump it in your greased loaf pan, or divide into muffin pans, and bake. I've been using this for mini muffins, and using a small cookie scoop to make it quick and even.

Baking times:

(approximate, will vary depending on your oven):

Full size loaf: 1 hour
Mini loaves: 30 minutes
Full size muffins: 25 minutes
Mini muffins: 15 minutes

Notes:

This is not a very sweet recipe. I put a 1/4 cup of brown sugar in there as optional - if you like your breads on the sweeter side, you'll want to add this. Or if you are starting with just veggies that aren't very sweet (like zucchini, or pumpkin), then you'll probably want it. But if you are using super ripe bananas that are already very sweet, or sweet applesauce, then I don't think you need it. If you are adding chocolate chips, then you probably don't need it.
If you are starting with already pureed fruit, then just measure 1 cup and add it to the rest of the wet ingredients and puree.
If you are starting with whole fruit and veggies, you need to estimate what will be enough to total no more than 2 cups when blended with the yogurt and honey. Start with a little, puree, and read the measurement on the side of the blender, then add more if you need to.
If you're worried about pureeing all your fruit and having no actual texture or chunks of fruit, just dice or grate a little and fold that in at the end, the same time as when you would add any nuts or chocolate chips. Remember it will release moisture though, so cut back on your puree just a tiny bit.
I have made this with all purpose white flour. It works. Personally I think the whole wheat version tastes better, it gives it a heartiness that you don't get from white flour, and I think the texture is nicer. But if you want to do it with white flour, go for it. You might want to decrease your wet ingredients just a bit, because the white flour doesn't seem to absorb as much liquid. I have also done half white and half wheat, and that works well.
I have not yet tried it with a gluten free flour, but I will soon. If you try it, let me know.
You could totally skip the yogurt and add an extra 1/4 cup of fruit puree instead (or an extra banana). I just like the little bit of tang that it gives, I think it rounds out the sweet fruit flavors really nicely. It seems to also somehow help contribute to a little crunch in the crust. You can also replace the yogurt with sour cream.
You can do this with less butter, or skip the butter and add more yogurt or some applesauce.

Top: banana; Middle: zucchini; Bottom: apple + carrot

Variations:

Quantities of fruit and veggies here are approximate and will vary depending on size. You still want to follow the rule of no more than 2 cups total when pureed with the honey and yogurt. I want you to experiment! Tell me what combinations you try!

Banana Bread: 3 very ripe bananas, 1 teaspoon cinnamon.
Pumpkin Bread: 1 1/4 cups organic canned pureed pumpkin, replace the cinnamon with 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice, replace the honey with real maple syrup, and add 1/4 cup brown sugar.
Apple Bread: 2 medium tart & juicy apples (I've been using Jonagold), 2 teaspoons cinnamon. I think this one is my favorite. It tastes like pie.
Zucchini Bread: 1 medium zucchini, just 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and add 1/4 cup brown sugar.
Apple + Carrot Bread: 1 medium apple, 2 medium carrots, 2 teaspoons cinnamon.
Carrot + Pear Bread: 1 medium pear, 2 medium carrots, 1 teaspoon cinnamon.
Banana chocolate chip: 3 very ripe bananas, 2/3 cup mini chocolate chips, no cinnamon (I don't like cinnamon and chocolate together in this kind of thing).

The possible combinations are endless! We made one this week with carrot, pear, apple, and chocolate chips.

Carrot + Apple bread, with cream cheese.

The only quick bread recipe you will ever need - make all kinds of flavor combinations for all of your holiday bread baking, school bake sales, after school snacks, breakfast muffins - seriously, this is the only recipe you need. It's fast and easy…

Lisa Marsh 2/1/19 Lisa Marsh 2/1/19

Banana Chocolate Chip Blender Muffins

I think I need to just bow out while I'm ahead with this one - I will never try another muffin recipe again. My children have declared these to be the best muffins they've ever had. And if you knew my kids, you'd know that they are pretty tough little food critics (my fault, I'm sure).

I've made a couple batches of these over the last week, and they are inhaling them as fast as I can bake them. But it's totally ok, because these are super easy to make, and relatively healthy, as far as things containing chocolate chips go. We're talking from starting to in the oven in like 5 minutes.

banana chocolate chip muffin recipe - easy and fast recipe, made in the blender. | whatlisacooks.com

You read that title right - blender muffins. Absorb that for a sec....

Banana Chocolate Chip Blender Muffin Recipe | whatlisacooks.com

I've made a couple batches of these over the last week, and they are inhaling them as fast as I can bake them. But it's totally ok, because these are super easy to make, and relatively healthy (as far as things containing chocolate chips go), and fast! We're talking from starting mixing, to in the oven, in like 5 minutes.

They are fast to make because they are mostly made in the blender!

I know it's an unconventional way to make this type of recipe, but it totally works. I love baking stuff like this for my kids, but all the steps and multiple bowls, and waiting for butter to come to room temperature so you can slowly cream it with sugar.... it was kiiillllling me. I had to find an easier way. I am an instant gratification kind of cook. I like to whip it out and move on to the next thing. So this is just my type of recipe.

Also the amount of sugar in so many recipes is just crazy! We're not making cake folks, we're making muffins. If I'm going to put 2 cups of white sugar in something, then let's just be honest and call it cake. I love cake, but I'm not feeding it to my kids every day. With super sweet ripe bananas and some honey, all that sugar is just not necessary.

I think these work best as mini muffins, they are just a perfect two bite size, for a little sweet treat or snack. But full size muffins work great too. The whole wheat flour makes them feel really filling, and the little bit of yogurt adds moisture and just a hint of tang that balances out the sweetness really nicely. You can swap out sour cream if you don't have yogurt. Or add more banana.

Ingredients:

2 cups whole wheat flour
3 very ripe bananas
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1/4 cup plain yogurt (I use whole milk Greek yogurt)
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup mini chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350, or 300 convection. Grease muffin pans (we prefer mini muffin pans), or if you are using paper or silicone liners then just set them out.

In the container of your high powered blender, put bananas (broken into a couple of pieces), cold butter (cut up a little), honey, yogurt, vanilla, and egg.
Start out pulsing the blender to get it started. Stop and push the contents down if you need to. Pulse some more. Once the butter is starting to break up and the ingredients blend together, turn it up gradually. Blend just until everything is well mixed.
In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and chocolate chips.
Pour the wet mixture over the dry and fold together gently just until all the flour is moistened.

Note: if you don't have a high powered blender, you can still make these! You'll just do it the old school way - let the butter soften, cream together with the honey, mix in the other wet ingredients (including mashed bananas), and then mix with the dry ingredients. They will still taste awesome, it will just take a little longer. So get yourself a blender, ok?

For mini muffins, I like to use a small cookie scoop to fill the muffin cups. I get the perfect amount every time and all the muffins end up evenly sized with no overflow.

Bake: 20 minutes for mini muffins. 30-40 minutes for regular muffins (depends on how big your cups are and how full you fill them). 1 hour for a loaf of bread.

If you're of the banana nut persuasion, you could totally add some chopped nuts to these. We just don't believe in mixing our nuts with our baked goods in this house. ;-)

Also, a hint: this recipe totally works with other mashed/pureed fruits too. I'm working an upcoming post about that, with a master quick bread recipe. But if you can't wait - just use this recipe, and swap out the bananas for any other pureed fruit, just make sure that it adds up to no more than 1 1/4 cups of puree, less if you're using something super wet (like apples). Leave out the chocolate chips and add nuts or raisins, and add a little spice.

Just a few ideas:

pumpkin muffins: pureed pumpkin, swap maple syrup for the honey, and add 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
apple pie muffins: puree a couple of tart apples, and add 2 teaspoons cinnamon
carrot muffin: puree a couple of carrots & a zucchini, and add 1 teaspoon cinnamon
try other combinations - banana + zucchini, pear + carrot, apple + carrot

(Links contained here are affiliate links. If you purchase something from a product link I've provided, I get a small commission. It doesn't cost you any more, but it helps me keep the lights on here.)

Wow - so easy! Banana chocolate chips muffin recipe that's made in the blender! whatlisacooks.com

Lisa Marsh 3/25/18 Lisa Marsh 3/25/18

Butter Cookies

I came up with this cookie recipe a while back, and it only just came to me that I never shared it. These are melt in your mouth delicious, and super easy to make.

Enjoy!

Lisa Marsh 3/2/16 Lisa Marsh 3/2/16

Basic recipe: pancakes and waffles

Add to the list of things that I can't for the life of me figure out why I ever bought in a box: pancakes.

Pancakes and waffles are so easy to make from scratch. Call me lazy, but I love a recipe that's versatile and adaptable to a number of uses. I like to think about it once and use it a lot - and this one definitely fits that bill.

Add to the list of things that I can't for the life of me figure out why I ever bought in a box: pancakes.

Pancakes and waffles are so easy to make from scratch.

Stop buying packaged pancakes mix! Homemade pancakes are so easy to make from scratch with this basic recipe for easy homemade pancakes and waffles - from whatlisacooks.com

Call me lazy, but I love a recipe that's versatile and adaptable to a number of uses. I like to think about it once and use it a lot - and this one definitely fits that bill.

I started with the basic pancake recipe from my favorite cookbook Mark Bittman's "How To Cook Everything", and I have adapted slightly from there to suit our needs. I like to use whole wheat flour to make them healthier, and real maple syrup for a more natural sweetener. My pancake recipe is a little sweeter than most, because I personally like for the pancake or waffle to taste really good without the need for syrup. I make a lot extra and keep them in the freezer to pop out for my kids for a weekday breakfast or lunch, and it's just quicker and easier if they already taste great without having to get out the syrup. But if you're going to only eat these with a generous pouring of syrup, then you'll probably want to cut back on the sweetener in the recipe.

Basic Pancake Recipe:

4 cups flour (whole wheat, or half whole wheat and half white)
2 tablespoons baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups milk (I use whole milk)
3 or 4 eggs - Enough to make about 4 cups of liquid when added to the milk & syrup, depending on the size of your eggs.
1/2 cup pure maple syrup (less if you plan on soaking your pancakes with syrup)
1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled. (optional, I often leave it out)
2 teaspoons vanilla
butter for your pan

Directions:

Measure all the dry ingredients into a big mixing bowl and stir to combine.

For the liquid ingredients: I fill my big measuring bowl up to 3 cups with milk, then add the syrup and vanilla, then add eggs until it gets to around 4 cups of total liquid ingredients. Then mix all that together with an egg beater until well combined (or you can use a whisk). Then pour into the dry ingredients and stir gently until combined. Try not to mix more than necessary, this will help keep your pancakes nice and light.

For pancakes you want the batter to be pretty thin, they puff up a lot and stay nice and light.

Waffle batter needs to be just slightly thicker, so I use 1/4 cup less liquid if I'm making waffles - either use one less egg, or cut your milk back a little.

Then cook: Pancakes on a hot buttered griddle, or waffles on a buttered nonstick waffle iron.

I like to cook my pancakes in lots of butter, I think it adds that amazing final layer of flavor. Pour our a ladle full of batter onto a well buttered griddle. I have a big double sized cast iron griddle that heats really evenly and works great. And the extra big size is perfect for making a bunch of pancakes at once. If you are going to add extras I like to add it at this stage, when the top of the pancake is still wet. We love to add blueberries, or slices of banana, and mini chocolate chips are a fun little treat too. Then watch for a little browning around the edges and bubbles in the middle, and then flip. Serve hot with hot maple syrup, and we like to have whipped cream on ours too.

For waffles, a good waffle iron makes all the difference. I worked with a cheap one for years and I was amazed at how much better the waffles were with just a new waffle maker. They are light and fluffy on the inside, and lightly crisp on the outside. For a big family like ours, the kind that makes two at a time is a must-have. If you want flavored waffles then mix your extras into the batter. Finely chopped nuts are really great, or a little grated apple.

Notes:

This is a double recipe because we like a lot extra, but feel free to cut it in half.
You can use all white flour, all wheat flour, or a mix of both. Or take out a little of the flour and add in some oats, or ground flax, or wheat germ, or oat bran - whatever you like to make them even more healthy
I've also made these with gluten free flour and they work great. They key to that is to separate the eggs, mix in the yolks with your batter as usual, and then beat the whites until soft peaks and then fold in. The beaten egg white provides the light and airy texture that you miss without the gluten.
Use less sweetener if you really are going to soak these with syrup.
I've done this vegan many times and it works great. Just substitute flax + water for the eggs. 1 T ground flax + 3T water, per egg to be replaced. Mix that together and let sit for a minute, then add it just as you would add the eggs.
You can use brown sugar instead of syrup in the batter.
When I want to make this more of a 'complete' meal for my kids, with more protein, I'll add a little less liquid and more eggs, or add some protein powder in with the dry mix.
Options for extra flavorings are pretty limitless. We love blueberry pancakes. Bananas or apples are great too. Finely chopped nuts and a little orange zest are really good in waffles.
If you want to take the extra time, separating the eggs and whipping up the egg whites is also a great trick to get really light and airy waffles.
For pancakes, I pour the batter on the greased griddle and then add stuff - a few blueberries, slices of banana or apple, chocolate chips, then flip them.

Lisa Marsh 10/20/15 Lisa Marsh 10/20/15

Easy Lemonade Lemon Cookie Recipe

I first came across a couple different versions of this recipe over the summer and made some with the kids. We loved them! They taste like summer, they are light and tangy and just the right amount of sweet. I think it's a little bit genius to make a lemon cookie using concentrated lemonade (the frozen kind) - you get all that great lemon flavor, but it's so quick and easy! I use an organic lemonade concentrate, so it does not contain high fructose corn syrup.

easy lemon cookies - made with lemonade concentrate! | whatlisacooks.com

I of course had to tinker with the recipe a bit to suit our taste, so here is my version.

Lemonade Cookies

Ingredients:

3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
2 eggs
3/4 cup lemonade concentrate (the frozen kind)
1/2 cup honey
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Thaw your lemonade concentrate. I do this by setting the can in a bowl of hot water while I get the rest of the ingredients ready. Preheat oven to 350 (or 300 convection).

The usual cookie method: cream butter & sugar (in this case, honey). Then add eggs, vanilla, and lemonade concentrate. Mix together dry ingredients. Then fold wet into dry. Stir gently, just enough to moisten all the flour. This keeps the cookies very light and soft.

I do all the wet part in my Vitamix. This lets you make it with cold butter. I hate having to wait for butter to soften. Put the honey and cold butter in the blender. Pulse on and off, and push down with a spatula, until they are creamed together. Have patience, this takes a few minutes. But it's a heck of a lot quicker than waiting for butter to soften. Once blended with the rest of the wet ingredients you end up with something very light which, when folded gently into the flour, makes for a very light and soft cookie.

Drop spoonfuls (or I use a small cookie scoop) on baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes, depending on size. This will make at least 2 dozen, but probably more depending on how big you make them.

If you want them extra lemony, use a cup of the lemonade concentrate. Or you can brush the tops with a bit of it before baking. To make them look a little extra fancy you could dust them with powdered sugar.

Here’s what you need to make this banana bread recipe.

How to make this:

Here’s the full recipe. I hope you enjoy!