SMiLes by Meg

Tag: flour

Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

Erik is here! After two years of long distance from Boston, Massachusetts to Anchorage, Alaska, we’re finally in the same place, for the long run – Washington, D.C.! And because Erik’s back, it’s only fitting that this week’s recipe is one he claims we’ve made before, though it never appears on the blog, so I don’t know how that can be true – whole wheat sourdough bread. This recipe is a modified version from the Tassajara Bread Book. We used starter from Alaska (shout out to Cathy Coon!) and realized that we probably no longer need to each have our …

Single Chocolate Chip Cookie

Have you ever thought, “What I really need right now is one large chocolate chip cookie, but no more than that?” This blog is for you. In the past, I’ve taught you how to make a mug brownie, and last week I started my small batch baking kick with some Funfetti cake. But a single chocolate chip cookie feels so much more decadent. In a small bowl, stir together the granulated sugar, dark brown sugar, oil, water and vanilla extract with a rubber spatula until combined. Add the flour, baking soda and salt and stir to combine. Add the chocolate …

Simple Chocolate Cake

I know that today is National Ice Cream Day. And that it’s ridiculously hot up and down the east coast, and no one wants to turn on their oven. But I have ignored both of those things, and today I bring you something that you should start just keeping all of the ingredients on hand for: Simple Chocolate Cake. I’ve made other chocolate cakes in the past, but this one has fewer than 10 ingredients, can be made in one bowl, and can be dressed up as much as you want, or left alone without any fuss. It is, of …

Rainbow Cake

This week, I made a super cool rainbow cake for Alexandra, one of the other first years in the corporate department at work. But before I get to that, I want to make a quick plug for donations to my upcoming bike ride. I’ll be riding the Best Buddies Challenge ride on June 1, and I have until May 17 to reach my goal. If you want to learn more about the ride, you can check out my donation page here, or drop me a comment and I’m happy to chat about why you should consider donating. Thank you so …

Irish Soda Bread Scones

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Boston is full of people in green, especially in the part of town I live in, so it’s hard to forget. Also, every year I convince myself that Irish Soda Bread is “bread” and therefore not a sweet, so I’ve consumed quite a bit of that in the last couple of days. Now, I’ve made Irish Soda Bread on the blog before. It was my mom’s recipe, and I made it as a surprise for her. Turns out, my mom is rather single-minded when it comes to soda bread: it’s Stop & Shop bakery brand or …

Sourdough Bagels

If you’ve been following my blog for awhile, you know that I have a sourdough starter that I like to bake with fairly often. Anytime I have a bread-type thing I want to make, I look to see if there’s a sourdough version. This is partly because every time I open my fridge it stares at me, wanting to be fed or used, and I feel bad letting it sit in there too long without doing something useful. (Even yeast cultures deserve to have a purpose in their lives.) But it is also because I despise using dry yeast for …

Mini Pumpkin Bread

Last week, I mentioned that I had made some pumpkin bread. Now that I’m back on the East Coast, where people are as obsessed with pumpkin as I am (I currently have a pumpkin spice candle lit next to my computer), it felt like a good time to post it! Pretty early in the SMiLes by Meg catalog I made a chocolate chip pumpkin bread, but I realized I hadn’t posted any just plain, high quality, pumpkin bread. I wanted a recipe that made its own spice mix, actually looked orange, and had some kind of crunchy topping. More importantly, …

Hamantaschen

These were really fun. If you don’t know by now, I give up sweets for Lent every year. Which means I try to find people to bake for each week so that I won’t have the temptation around me. This year, Erik made it easy. He wanted to make hamantaschen for Purim so that we could send cookies to a long list of people, all over the country, that he stays in touch with. Sending cookies by mail far from Boston fits in well with my Lenten promise to not eat said cookies. A win-win all around.

Sourdough Pancakes

I always feel a little bit like pancakes don’t quite belong on this blog. As a baker, I’m drawn to breakfast food, and they do have cake in their name, but they seem like less of an adventure than other things I make. But I wanted to make another loaf of sourdough bread this weekend, and was already feeding my starter, so decided to give these a try. As consolation for them not being super exciting, I’ll supplement them with a good story.