Potato bread was always one of my favorite types of bread. Even way back in elementary school, when I always hoped to find it on my PB&J sandwiches, I knew the taste and texture of the bread if not the name.

Potato bread is just what is sounds like: bread that is made with potato in it. Now, we’re not talking about shredded potatoes here, but about cooked and mashed potato that is incorporated seamlessly into a regular dough. Potato breads are known for their light, delicate crumb, mild sweetness and a softness that few other breads share. It’s almost surprising, given that potatoes are generally considered to be heavy and filling. The fact is that yeast loves potato starch, and when mashed potatoes are added to a yeast bread dough, the yeast starts to work overtime and lifts the bread even higher - making a lighter, fluffier loaf - than it would on its own. 

This bread starts with a single boiled, mashed potato and is later enhanced with a generous amount of parmesan cheese. You can substitute 1 cup of plain, mashed potato if you happen to have some (like instant potato flakes) on hand. The potato gives the fluffy tenderness and mild sweetness that it always contributes, while the cheese adds a slightly salty and very addictive flavor. It is excellent plain or with a bit of butter, and will really complement many main dishes. With a bowl of soup, this loaf could easily finish a meal. It would also make a great base for an amazing garlic bread.

I shaped mine in a simple, oblong loaf and, thanks to the boost in rising power supplied by the potato starch, it was a very large loaf at that. You can break your dough down into two smaller loaves, if you prefer, by cutting back on the baking time by about 10 minutes, as long as you check the internal temperature with an instant-read thermometer (should be about 200F) to ensure that your loaves are completely baked.

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If you’ve seen Rachael Ray’s 30 Minute Meals, you know that there are a couple of signature things that she has and does. Extra virgin olive oil is EVOO and spices and such always get “measured” by wide approximation. She also always has a garbage bowl, a bowl into which all of her trash - wrappers, egg shells, veggie peelings, etc - gets dumped to save a few trips to the trash bin while she is cooking. And now these Rachael Ray brand Garbage Bowls are available for purchase on their own (following in the footsteps of the RR brand EVOO). The bowls are made of plastic, but are patterned after common countertop materials, like granite, quartz, marble and brick, in the hopes that they will blend in with the decor of your kitchen to some extent.

Of course, if the gift box that the bowl comes in isn’t that important to you, you can use any old bowl to the same end, but one of these might not be such a bad idea for a gift if you have a big RR fan in your life.

 The most common type of cookie seems to be the drop cookie. Chocolate chip, oatmeal and anything else that must be scooped and dropped (hence the name) onto a baking sheet without any shaping or rolling falls into this category and, despite how prevalent they are, there is a lot of debate over how exactly you’re supposed to drop the chunks of cookie dough onto your baking sheet. How big should the cookies be? How do you get them to all turn out to be the same size?

Most recipes call for dough to be dropped in “heaping teaspoonfuls” or “rounded tablespoonfuls” and I have to admit that I am no exception here (although I do try to give a more concrete estimate of the size by saying things like “1-inch in diameter” when I can). These measures are based on actual spoonful amounts, not on measuring spoons. Think of your silverware drawer. Odds are that you have two sizes of spoons in there: smalls are teaspoons and larges are tablespoons. They don’t correspond exactly to the size of a measuring spoon, but tableware is where the measurement originated - and where the measurement for cookie dough scoop sizes still lies. A rounded or heaping tablespoonful is going to be about 2 measured tablespoons. A rounded or heaping teaspoonful is going to be about 1 measured tablespoon.

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There are so many varieties of apples available in stores and at farmers markets these days, that it can be challenging to choose apples for baking. In the past, a baker might have reached for sweet-tart Granny Smith apples without a second thought, but there are many different kinds of apples that will work just as well, if not better, in baking pies, crisp and other apple desserts.

Texture and taste are the two most important qualities to consider in a baking apple, and the apple that you like best for everyday snacking might not hold up when put into a pie. Apples need to retain their shape and not turn into applesauce during baking. The best apples will be able to offer a little bit of resistance (keep a little hint of crunch) even after a long time in the oven. Baking apples should also not be too sweet, since most pie recipes call for a fair amount of sugar. The sugar serves as flavoring and helps thicken the juices of the apples as they cook, and cutting it down to compensate for super-sweet apples can sometimes change the outcome of the final pie.

Granny Smiths are always a decent choice for pie, as they are easy to find, will hold up during baking and can take a lot of extra flavor from sugar and spices. Jonathan, Jonagold and Pippin apples are other excellent sweet-tart choices. Gravenstein, Braeburn, Fuji and Pink Lady Apples are all crisp and sturdy, as well. Red Delicious and Golden Delicious, despite their promising names, are not good choices for baking, and neither are Gala and Cortland, since they tend to become mealy in pie fillings.

If the recommend apples aren’t available in your area, or if others not mentioned here are (this is the case in many apple-growing areas), try experimenting a little with different types of apples. One way to do this is to blend together several different kinds for a pie filling, giving your pie a mixture of textures and flavors - and covering up any apples that bake up less-than-perfectly.

I personally like to use a mix most of the time no matter what and, at the moment, my favorite is a blend of Granny Smith, Braeburn and/or Pink Lady. If you have a favorite blend, or if I missed your favorite type of baking apple (because there are so many to choose from), leave a note in the comments below!

Peanut butter and chocolate is a winning combination no matter how you look at it. If it weren’t, there wouldn’t be nearly so many chocolate and peanut butter confections in the candy aisle at the store. But candy isn’t the only place where you can pair these two flavors. I matched them up in this muffin recipe, adding chocolate chips to a peanut buttery muffin for a rather indulgent breakfast or brunch snack.

I chose to use milk chocolate chips, rather than the semisweet or dark chocolate I usually use. I think that milk chocolate and peanut butter work very well together (possibly because milk and peanut butter really go hand-in-hand), and the milk chocolate chips add an extra bit of sweetness to the not-too-sweet muffin base. You should certainly free to substitute a darker chocolate chip if that is your preference, and if you want to make this extra indulgent (or want to really impress at a bake sale), use chopped up peanut butter cup-type candies, like Reese’s.

I will also note that I used a natural peanut butter that had minimal salt and sugar added into it. The recipe should work out just as well using a more commercial peanut butter, but the flavor will be slightly different since they tend to have more sugar and salt in those butters. Feel free to use chunky peanut butter or smooth, depending on what you have on hand at home and whether you want any extra bits of nut in your muffins.

I have come to expect that peanut butter cakes/muffins/cupcakes, unfortunately, sometimes turn out to be a bit dry and much denser than their non-peanut butter counterparts. Happily, that was not the case with these muffins. They were surprisinly moist and had a relatively light crumb, giving them an almost cake-like texture. But since they are muffins and not cupcakes, they are still sturdy enough to hold up to a spread of peanut butter or cream cheese, if you want to top your muffin off before you eat it.

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Another week, another handful of amazing recipes from other bloggers. Have you noticed that even bloggers who don’t regularly bake tend to use their oven a bit more in the fall and winter? There’s sure to be many more inspiring recipes as the weather cools down even more this season.

• An all-purpose cornbread recipe is always good to have on file as the weather gets colder and soups and other cornbread-friendly foods find their way on to the table. But variety is good, too, and the Feta and Chive Cornbread from A Year in Bread looks like it has just enough extra flavor in it. The recipe is helpfully given by both volume and weight, in standard and metric.
• I’m not personally a big nut fan, but I was sold by the photos and description of Vanilla Cashew Sorbet on Jumbo Empanadas. The sorbet is vegan and nondairy, made with cashews, maple syrup and vanilla beans. It looks as creamy as “real” ice cream and Brilynn says that it “tastes so amazing you’ll forget it’s not full of animal product goodness.”
• A Self-proclaimed Foodaholic made up a good-looking batch of Citrus Poppyseed Cupcakes, a variation on a plain vanilla cupcake that uses orange and lemon juice, orange and lemon zest and a few blue poppyseeds. The cupcakes look like they have a light, fluffy texture and would be a nice change from plain chocolate and vanilla.
• All summer, YumSugar has been putting together variations on the ice cream sandwich. They just posted their Ice Cream Sandwich Roundup, featuring 14 amazing sandwich ideas. Coconut Macaroons with Creme Brulee Ice Cream and Dulce De Leche Ice Cream with Chocolate Covered Graham Crackers particularly appeal to me.
• I know a lot of people who adore banana cream pie, but the pudding-and-whipped cream combination can be a little over-the-top at times. The Banoffee Tarts made by Applemint keep the creamy and banana parts of a banana cream pie and make it a little more interesting by adding toffee, for a deeper flavor, into the mix. Additionally, the tarts are small and look very elegant, a nice twist on comfort food.
• Finally, Happy Home Baking baked up a beautiful loaf of Pumpkin Bread that would be an outstanding addition to any holiday meal. The bread is slightly sweet, with a light and fluffy texture, and is topped with pumpkin seeds to make it more visually interesting than a plain loaf. I have to admit that the pumpkin seeds on a round, golden loaf make it look a tiny bit like a giant hamburger bun, but the overall effect is absolutely charming and wouldn’t stop me from taking a slice or two.