Apparently we’re quickly approaching November.  Wait… what!?  In the blink of an eye we’ll be eating turkey for Thanksgiving, wrapping holiday gifts, and kissing at midnight… that’s how fast this year is going!

What are we going to do about this? Is there some sort of pause button.

The only thing I can think do to do slow things down involves these healthy-ish Pumpkin Millet and Chocolate Muffins, a cup of milky tea, and Food and Wine Magazine.  Did you slow things down this weekend?  Was there pumpkin and chocolate, too?

This is real life.  Warm muffin.  Milk tea.  Food magazine.

I don’t slow down very often… I’m a terrible relaxer.  A short moment that looks like this?  Yea… it’s a nice and necessary recharge.

Ps.  You should totally know that I ate three muffins… not just the one pictured here.  Three.  They’re small.  No biggie.

Oh!  My little bit of downtime has given me all sorts of holiday pie ideas.  Get your pie tins out!  It’s going to get delicious here.

I love the simplicity of these muffins.  I think you will too.

No mixer necessary.  All you need is a few bowls, pureed pumpkin, and crunchy dry millet.

The millet adds a tender, healthful crunch to the muffins.  Like nuts… without being nuts.

The muffins are moist and pumpkin-y.  Perfect for the season.

Perfect perfect perfect with chocolate.

You have to balance out all of that whole wheat flour and millet with chocolate, right?

It’s all about balance.

Ps.  I’m so bad at balance… that has everything to do with the fact that I’m a terrible relaxer.

I must admit that this recipe is very similar to other recipes here at Joy the Baker.

I like pumpkin.  I like chocolate.  I like millet.

If you’ll recall, the Banana Millet Bread was pretty stellar, and these Soft Pumpkin Cookies are bonkers delicious.

Also… you can totally go vegan with this Vegan Pumpkin Walnut Bread.

Just lookin’ out for you!

I had some pictures taken this week…. the kind of pictures where I had to pretend to be an actress with glossy lips and curled hair.

The kind of pictures where you have to look surprised and pleased and over the shoulder and don’t do that weird thing with your lips and open your eyes wider and tuck that crazy hair under the less crazy hairs and what the heck are you doing with your chin and please stop that…

Those kind of pictures.

Dumb.

Know what I learned?  My forehead is huge.

When I was a kid my Dad made fun of me for having a huge forehead (thanks dad… it’s your fault anyway!), and I had assumed that I had grown into my large upper face region.  I was wrong.  Totally disproportionate.  I’m reconsidering bangs.  Please don’t tell my Dad…. the last thing I need is for that whole thing to start up again.

I tell you about my large forehead because it has everything to do with this loaf of bread.

Where my forehead is disproportionate to my face… this bread, with its six simple ingredients, is totally proportionate to… itself.

Wait.

See what I did there?

Forehead and bread.

Proportions are very important in a loaf as simple as this.  The ratio of flour to liquid and leavening lends a distinct texture… in this case, darn near perfect.

This beautiful loaf is somewhere right between sweet and savory.  There’s no sugar beyond the dark molasses.  But lemme tell ya… just the molasses adds a really lovely and deep flavor.

Whole wheat flour and cornmeal lend to the savory aspects of the bread and give this loaf a great nuttiness and just a bit of crunch.  I could totally see serving this bread with a hearty vegetarian soup for dinner or a cup of tea for breakfast.  I spread my with Nutella.  Duh… delicious.  Then I spread it with cream cheese and my head just about exploded.  Perfect.

Were you wondering how many pounds of Rainier Cherries I’ve eaten in the four days I’ve been in Seattle?  Well… just about six.  Six pounds of cherries.

Were you wondering if you can get a terrible tummyache from too eating too many Ranier Cherries?  Well… yes.  Yes you can.

Wait… I just realized that this recipe is similiar to the Banana Bourbon Bread Pudding I just made.  Yeesh.  I’m on a baked bread and fruit and sugar kick.  Bear with me.

I love a Brown Betty.  They’re so simple.  I imagine this is the sort of dessert I’ll make when I’m eighty, shuffling around the hosue wearing housecoats and slippers and lipstick.

This Brown Betty is cubed whole wheat bread, sugar, fruit and butter.  You have that stuff on hand, don’t you.

My sister saw me cubing bread for this dessert and swore that it would be a terrible waste of cherries.

I called her a good for nothin’ whipper snapper and went about my business.

Pitting cherries is sort of like murder… without the death.

Layers of sugar, butter, bread and fruit bake up to be a simply sweet dessert that is just nutty enough, thanks to the whole wheat bread, and with just the right amount of moisture and richness, thanks to generous amounts of butter.  I love cherries in this recipe, but you might want to try another summer fruit like : ripe peaches, raspberries or apricots.  Win.

Oh!  I had company while I made this Brown Betty.  This is Charles.  He doesn’t mind if you call him Chuck.  He likes tomato soup and potato chips.

I was ready to shovel this Betty in my mouth even before I put it in the oven…

… but warm from the oven, totally worth the wait.  I need ice cream.

It would seem that you can throw just about anything into an 8×4-inch loaf pan and have some sweet smellin’ magic come out of your kitchen after an hour or so.  What’s more, pulling a beautifully risen quick bread out of the oven is sure to make you feel like your a prime-time, super legit baker.  

Here’s a peek at my favorite quick bread recipes.  

Oh!  Happy Wednesday to you.  Also… you look pretty today.  I like what you did with your hair.  

Low Fat Oatmeal Banana Bread.  Still moist.  Still all sorts of delicious.  I even counted the Weight Watchers points on this one.  Whaaaat!?  Yea.  That happened. 

Raspberry Almond Bread.  Yes, after it’s baked the bread turns a touch blue from the raspberries.  What’s the science on that?  Can we get Bill Nye the Science Guy on this one?

Zucchini Sweet Potato Bread.  Fresh grated zucchini.  Raw grated sweet potato.  It’s unique, full of spice and delicious.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Banana Bread.  It’s chocolate.  It’s for breakfast.  If this offends you… I’m not sure what you’re doing here.  I mean that with love and respect.  

Lemon Drenched Lemon Cakes.  Ok… so maybe this is more of a pound cake recipe than a quick bread recipe.  This cake is too good to pass up.  Lemon plus lemon syrup plus cake.  I vote:  awesome. 

Honey Cranberry Cornmeal Quick Bread.  Have any leftover cranberries in your fridge?  Me too.  

Fresh Mango Bread.  I never would have thought to put fresh mango in bread until Dorie Greenspan told me it was ok.  

Vegan Pumpkin Walnut Bread.  Dense and moist.  Who says you need butter and eggs to make awesome bread!?  Whoever they are… kick ‘em in the toe.  They’re wrong. 

Persimmon Bread.  You are mighty strange persimmon bread, but I love you just the same. 

Honey Whole Wheat Pound Cake.  Dense.  Nutty.  It’ll charm your pants off.  Be prepared. 

Let’s play a game called Usta Wanna or… I Used to Want To.

I usta wanna be brave enough to go down the free fall water slide at the water park.

I usta wanna be a traffic cop… the kind that would dance in the street on occasion… the kind that I saw at the end of a slow evening news show sometime when I was about six.  I actually still want to be one of those traffic cops.  No joke.

I usta wanna take the swim test at overnight summer camp privately.  Something about doing my life saving dog paddle in front of the entire girls camp made me nauseous.

I usta wanna design a postage stamp.  This is the precious dream of a young girl whose parents both work at the post office.

Between the ages of 13 and 15, I usta wanna eat nothing but popcorn and orange juice.  I dunno…. I never claimed to be reasonable.

I usta wanna completely negate whole wheat from my life.  If I could have eaten Wonder Bread and ignored the whole wheat millet bread my parents bought as I was growing up… ooooh, how dreams would have come true.  Because whole wheat seemed to be impossible to escape, it would seem that somewhere along the way I grew fond of it.  For this reason, I bring you…  Honey Whole Wheat Pound Cake.

Let’s talk about it.

Let’s talk about how lovely this pound cake is.  It was nutty and full-flavored, without having an overwhelming whole wheat density.  I used white whole wheat flour instead of regular whole wheat flour.  If you can, use a good raw honey for this cake… something like Bee Raw or Ames Farm.  The honey add a sweetness with character and depth, making the pound cake really delightful.  I love this cake.  It’s a definite go-to classic in my world.

Honey Whole Wheat Pound Cake

makes 1 9 x 5-inch loaf and 6 muffins

Print this Recipe!

2 1/4 cups white whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 sticks (12 Tablespoons of butter), at room temperature

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup honey

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 large eggs

1 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Butter and flour the loaf pan and muffin tins.

Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together in a small bowl and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric stand mixer, whip the butter, sugar and honey on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 to 4 minutes.  Add the vanilla extract.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating for about one minute after each addition.  Scrape down the bowl as needed.  Add the dry mixture and buttermilk in three additions, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.  Stop the mixer and scrape the bottom of the bowl with a spatula to make sure everything is evenly incorporated.

Transfer the batter to the prepared pans.  Smooth the top down and bake the cake for about  hour and the muffins for about 20 to 25 minutes.  The cake will be a lovely golden brown and a thin knife inserted into the center of the cake will come out clean.

Let the cake cool in the pan for 20 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

I love a good weekend project, especially when that project involves my fingers in loads of cookie dough.

I’ll admit that I may be waaaay behind the times on this trick.  It’s the sort of trick that super moms have on lock to make them look even more awesome than they already are.  Since I haven’t yet produced other people with my body, this trick is just now hitting my radar.

The idea is this:  one day… (say, maybe a lazy Saturday morning) whip up a couple batches of your favorite cookie dough.  Dollop that cookie dough onto a cookie sheet, all close like.  Throw the entire cookie sheet into the freezer.  Freeze the dough balls, then throw them into a zip lock bag and back into the freezer.  You know what that means?  All you have to do is flick on the oven and throw in a few dough balls anytime you want fresh baked cookies!  Dang this livin’ is easy!

This frozen dough ball situation is key and here’s why:

You and the family can have  fresh baked cookies any and every night.

Surprise guests?  No problem at all… you just happened to be whipping up a batch of fresh cookies.  Taaadaaa!

Bake ‘em directly from frozen…. do it!

Frozen dough balls in the middle of the night?  I won’t tell a soul.  Can I be honest?  I eat the dough balls more often than I actually bake the cookies.  In fact… be right back.  Dough ball for breakfast.

Full disclosure:  I’ve eaten three cookie dough balls in the writing of this post.  I’m not done yet.

You might also try these recipes for you cookie dough freezing pleasure:

Oatmeal Cherry White Chocolate Cookies

Double Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

I love waking up about half an hour early on Wednesdays to make pancakes for breakfast.  They really take very little time to throw together, and they make a world of difference to my day.  I can’t save my pancakes only for special weekend breakfasts.  Sometimes (every Wednesday) I need that weekend indulgence before I throw on the chef’s coat and dive into the big kitchen.

Whole Wheat Banana Walnut Pancakes are surprisingly light, healthy, and keep me full well into the afternoon.  Drizzled with homemade Vanilla-Brown Sugar Syrup and served with a side of fresh fruit, I can indulge in the comforts of a lazy Sunday morning, even on a daunting weekday.

Treat yourself to pancakes on a weekday.  The sunshine and hearty breakfast are well worth the early alarm chime.