Fall Baking with Food Storage

We have been having beautiful Fall weather. Saturday we spent about an hour getting our yard ready for winter (the benefits of a having a very small yard -- it doesn't take long to do the work!). Besides enjoying my kids' fall soccer games and cross country meets, another favorite thing I thoroughly enjoy doing during the fall season is baking. And there's no better way to do Fall Baking than to use your food storage (I'm an EVERYDAY FOOD STORAGE FANATIC, you know!). Here are a few of my favorite recipes:

Cinnamon Burst Bread (like Great Harvest's)

3 T. yeast

1/2 cup sugar
4 eggs, beaten lightly
3 3/4 cup warm water
4 1/2 tsp. salt
3 T. vegetable oil
2 1/2 cups cinnamon bites (available at Honeyville Grain's Country Stores)
11-12 cups flour (I use all-purpose flour, but I'm guessing this recipe would be good with wheat; the cinnamon bites turn the dough a brown color anyway, so the darker color of wheat probably wouldn't even be noticed!)

Combine in mixing bowl 4 cups flour, yeast, and sugar. Add water, eggs, and oil. Beat well to "cake batter" stage. Stir in salt, cinnamon bites, and 7 more cups flour to make bread-dough consistency. Let mixer knead it to the right texture (add up to 1 more cup flour if needed). Place dough in greased bowl, cover, and let rise for 1 hour. Shape dough into 4 loaves. Let rise for another hour or until doubled. Bake at 375 degrees for about 30 minutes. Slice thick and serve warm with butter, or toast slices in the toaster (be careful, the cinnamon bites can burn your fingers), or make slices into French Toast. Yummy!

Kendra's Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup shortening
1 T. vanilla
3 eggs (great with Honeyville's powdered eggs; then you can use the dough in milk shakes or just eat it up before you bake or freeze it!)
5 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. salt
3 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (Nestle is our favorite)

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Mix sugars, butter, and shortening. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well. Stir in remaining ingredients. Drop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake until light brown, approximately 8-10 minutes. Cool slightly before removing from cookie sheet. Makes about 6 dozen cookies. Hint: I only bake a dozen cookies at a time, usually for an after-school snack for the kids. The remaining dough is shaped into balls and frozen. Once frozen, I place all the cookie balls into a Ziploc freezer bag, and they're ready for baking whenever we want another dozen cookies (it usually takes about 1 extra minute to cook the frozen balls of dough).

Young's Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread (like Great Harvest's)
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
2 cups canned pumpkin (this will go on sale near Thanksgiving; stock up then!)
1 1/4 cups oil
3 cups flour
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Beat eggs, sugar, pumpkin and oil in a large mixing bowl. Add remaining ingredients, except chocolate chips, and mix well. Fold in chocolate chips. Pour into two greased and floured 8x4x2" loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 60-70 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing to wire racks. (I made this recently without the chocolate chips, which is shown in the picture below. We prefer it WITH chocolate chips!)

I hope you enjoy these recipes as much as my family does! Don't worry about trying to make them healthy. You need SOME extra fat on your body to keep you warm through the winter!