We love classic banana bread as much as the next person who chronically “forgets” about those last two bananas until it’s too late to do anything else with them. But why make it plain when you could make a wonderfully moist banana bread strewn with crunchy, toasty walnuts and melty dark chocolate? Two flavors that, … Read more
Step 1 In a medium bowl, whisk together 2½ cups lukewarm water, 1 (¼-oz.) envelope active dry yeast (2¼ tsp.), and 2 tsp. honey and let it sit for about 5 minutes. After that it should start to look foamy; if it doesn’t, then it’s likely your yeast is dead and you need to get … Read more
Breakfast breads dress up a brunch table, encouraging everyone to have another cup of coffee and stay awhile. Homemade muffins and quick breads welcome new neighbors and make excellent additions to a care package. But these recipes can also serve as a gift to yourself—stashed in your freezer, they offer a sweet (or savory) bite … Read more
How we tested the toasters When it comes to the perfect piece of toast, sliced white sandwich bread is the ultimate blank slate—so we started by grabbing a few bags of Wonder Bread to gauge how each machine could handle the basics. We toasted pieces of bread at each setting on the low to high … Read more
Look, this is not the best bread machine. That’s the Breville. But for a bread maker that was a third the price of our top pick (at publish time) the Oster ExpressBake did a decent job—we didn’t get evenly risen loaves, but we did get evenly browned ones with a nice crumb. This one has … Read more
A kringle is a flaky, buttery pastry with deep Northern European roots. Danish immigrants brought the tradition for making the original pretzel-like specialty with them to their new homes in the small town of Racine, WI. After combining Danish and American baking techniques, the Wisconsin kringle was born: a shareable large oval pastry that gets … Read more
The goal: Develop a recipe for gluten-free focaccia that rivals our wildly popular recipe for no-knead focaccia. Getting there was no easy task. Flour is a fairly small component in cakes and cookies relative to the other ingredients. But bread? Bread recipes hinge on gluten, which is formed by the reaction of (usually) wheat-based bread … Read more