Easier, healthier, quicker baking from scratch.

Tamara Nugteren


I love to bake.
Muffins, breads, cookies - basically anything that goes into the oven.

When you bake from scratch, you control the ingredients that go into your families
and yourselves.
No dyes or artificial anything.  No things you cannot pronounce.  You can tweak the recipe to your family's tastes or dietary needs.
Basically, love and care - straight from you.  (Not that anyone appreciates it, right?)
I always try to get a really great result with less sugar and fat and more of the healthy ingredients - whatever the recipe.  You'll find me adding flax or chia seeds and using whole wheat pastry flour* in my muffins.  I add extra vegetables to my meatloaf and I often cut out the dairy in recipes when I can (for my daughter).

But scratch baking takes time.  Worth it of course, because it is SO much better tasting - but still, you need the time.

Simple tip of the day:
Whenever you find time to bake something - make extra.  You have all the ingredients out anyway, and that is half the battle.

Ready to go Popover Mix

For muffins, breads, cakes, etc. - put all the dry ingredients into a baggie.  Label it well, with the needed remaining wet ingredients and the baking instructions.  Just like Betty Crocker.  Store away for later.


For cookies, go ahead and make up the extra dough.  Place all your extra dough cookies onto a baking sheet and freeze solid.  Then just pop the frozen, unbaked cookies off the pan and into a freezer bag.  Mark the outside of the bag with the oven temperature and baking time.  Bake at your leisure.  Do a whole batch of cookies or just two next time you are ready.  (A great time saver for when you suddenly have extra children at your house who all want a snack).

Oatmeal chocolate chip macadamia nut cookie dough.

For savory, entree-type items, make up a complete extra dish and freeze in the container that you will later bake it in.  For example, I freeze unbaked "mini meatloaves" in the muffin pan.  Once they are solid, I pop them out and into a baggie.  Later, when I need them, I can put the frozen mini meatloaves back into the muffin pan and bake them.  For homemade meatballs, do as you would the cookie dough. You can also use the aluminum recyclable pans that they sell in the grocery store for items like lasagnas or other types of one dish meals. Use your imagination.  I try not to use any of my good glassware or bakeware for freezing because I need it too often.

Frozen, unbaked mini meatloaves
(Make sure to get the air out of the bag,
though - this picture doesn't show that)

I'll post some recipes to get you started separately - so please check back.  My dog needs a walk.


* Whole wheat pastry flour (WWPF) is whole wheat flour that has been ground extra fine.  I use this in a half/half mix with regular unbleached All Purpose (AP) flour for most things.  Muffins, cakes, cookies.  Extra health benefits from the whole wheat flour, but light enough to bake well.  The extra fine grind makes it unnoticeable to those with picky pallets.  The half AP flour assures that the end product will not be too heavy.  Unfortunately, I haven't had good luck using WWPF for breads.  I think I could make it work with the right amount of added gluten, but I haven't given it a good try yet.  I'm still using Bread Flour for bread. If you haven't yet tried the whole wheat pastry flour - try it.  It is sold in many places, but not everywhere.  For example, SuperTarget only has it sometimes.  Cub has it in the organic section (even though it isn't organic).  Bob's Red Mill sells it, among others.