I’m looking outside my window at the dense fog and winter chill clinging to bony tree branches and wishing I could see sunshine and palm trees instead.

I’m sitting here surrounded by a pile of crumpled Kleenexes with raging sinus pressure and wishing that I could snap my fingers and this horrible cold would just disappear.

I’m thinking about how I want so much to change in the next few months and wishing that none of it would change at all at the same time.

I’m realizing that as much as I look outside, inside or to the future and wish for so many things to be different or the same, in every case, I’d rather just be here, with you, dear reader. And a warm, buttered slice of this ricotta-olive oil herb bread. Life is just much simpler that way.

I’d been longing to make another sandwich loaf for a while: One that’s dense yet soft, flavorful yet mild, healthy yet delicious. So when I happened upon this recipe, I knew it was the perfect fit for me and my Saturday afternoon.

The creamy ricotta cheese, though invisible to the taste buds, renders this loaf soft and chewy. The olive oil gives it mild flavor support but major moisture. And the herbs, though faintly present, provide a robust and refreshing aftertaste to every slice, one made even better with a dip in the toaster and a spackling of butter or cream cheese. It’s the best thing to make when nothing else is going the way you want it to go (or, exactly the way you want it to go?) — when nothing is certain. This bread is loyal and steadfast to a fault: Hard to mess up and hard to resist when it’s beaming up at you straight out of the oven. It’s just the antidote for a wishful day.

Ricotta-Olive Oil Herb Bread
Adapted from Roxana’s Home Baking

Yields: One loaf

Ingredients:
1/4 cup lukewarm water
2 1/4 teaspoons (1 packet) active dry yeast
2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup lukewarm water

Directions:
In a large bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, whisk together 1/4 cup lukewarm water, yeast and 2 tablespoons flour. Let stand 5 minutes until foamy.
To the proofed yeast mixture, add olive oil, ricotta cheese, salt, herbs and flours and stir to combine.
Attach dough hook and slowly mix in enough of the lukewarm water so that dough comes together and pulls away from sides of the bowl. Increase speed to medium and knead 3-5 minutes or until dough is smooth and elastic (or, stir water into dough with a wooden spoon until you’ve got a cohesive dough, then remove from bowl and knead on a lightly floured counter top 10-15 minutes until smooth and elastic).
Shape dough into a ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover with lightly oiled plastic wrap or a tea towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.
Remove risen dough from bowl and press dough into a 9-by-9-inch square. Roll up dough from one side into a log and tuck swirled edges under (so the top of the dough is taut). Place log in a lightly oiled loaf pan, cover with lightly oiled plastic wrap or a tea towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Remove plastic wrap or tea towel and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until a thermometer inserted in the dough reads about 200 degrees F. Remove from oven and let cool in pan for 10 minutes; remove from pan and let cool completely on a cooling rack before slicing.

Were I a professional baker, I probably wouldn’t end up with flat, under-risen loaves of bread on a near-regular basis. I probably wouldn’t have nightmares in my sleep of covering my entire kitchen in flour or burning forgotten breads to a crisp in the oven. I probably wouldn’t have daily ruminations like, “Did I OVERknead the bread or UNDERknead it?” while staring at my computer screen, and the mere thought of a sourdough starter wouldn’t send me straight to the grocery store, grabbing a pretty, freshly baked loaf in fear and exclaiming, out loud, to no one, “How do they DO it?!”

But, professional bakers probably think about these things, too, from time to time. You can’t tell me Peter Reinhart hasn’t had a few floppy baguettes or soggy bagels in his time, or that every loaf of bread that emerges from Rose Levy Beranbaum’s oven is absolutely perfect (Oh, who am I kidding? It probably is).

I’m just keeping it real here, friends. Sometimes, I just need to go back to the basics. And this archived post, one of my favorites that I wrote for Tablespoon, was the first thing that popped into my head when I decided I needed a refresher course. So, I’d thought I’d share it with you, too. Take a gander over there to learn some Bread 101 and bake yourself one seriously awesome basic white bread. It’ll change your life.

Annnnnnd here’s the recipe only, if you’re too cool for school:

Finally, I feel like I don’t ask for your input nearly often enough. So, that’s about to change, and I’m starting here, with a question for ya’ll:

What would you like to see baked and blogged on Girl Versus Dough? I’m game for anything, folks — difficult, easy, sweet, savory, creative, boring, weird, whatever. Let’s do this.

There are a few things I can’t get enough of: Mini pigs, paintings by Van Gogh, brownies with ice cream, intriguing and nail-bitingly dramatic episodes of “Mad Men” (and perhaps moreso, their style) and now, a new addition to the list. Ladies and gentlemen, meet povitica.

When mine eyes were first laid upon this bread (probably on Pinterest, another distraction I never seem to tire of, even many long hours after my droopy eyes have said, “Enough with the DIY hanging plant holders!”), I knew it had to be in my kitchen. Right. Now. There was no time to waste! I was a girl obsessed! This bread was destined to get in my belly! It was admittedly a low point.

And then — oh, and then — I saw the gargantuan list of directions. My heart sank. I was done for. In my Post-Holiday Stupor of Undeterred Laziness, I knew I’d give up as soon as the recipe called for any verb.

However, after a few hours of wallowing in my self pity of non-povitica-ness, wherein I probably nervously drank copious amounts of hot chocolate, took a nap and looked at photos of mini pigs on Pinterest simultaneously, I decided enough was enough. A new New Year’s resolution was to be had; and thus, so was this povitica.

Dear Lord. This sweet bread is a gift from above. It is worth every verb in this recipe. I mean, there are chocolate and walnuts and butter and sugar on the line here, people! So take a deep breath, maybe peruse a few photos of mini pigs yourself, and get down to business. You won’t be sorry.

Povitica, Croatian walnut bread
Adapted slightly from Passionate About Baking

Yields: One loaf

Ingredients:
For the dough –
1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon unbleached, all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons lukewarm water
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/2 cup milk
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour

For the filling –
1 1/2 cups walnuts, ground
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 egg yolk, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

For the topping –
1 egg white, beaten
1/2 teaspoon sugar crystals (optional)

Directions:
In a small bowl, stir together sugar, flour, water and yeast and let stand 5 minutes until foamy.
Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, heat milk to just below boiling (about 180 degrees F), stirring constantly to avoid that gross film that forms on top. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly to 110 degrees F.
In a large bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, mix the scalded milk, sugar and salt until just combined. Add eggs, yeast mixture, vanilla extract, melted butter and flour and stir until just combined. Switch to a dough hook and knead in stand mixer for about 5 minutes, adding 1 tablespoon flour at a time until dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl and is smooth and elastic; OR, place dough on a lightly floured countertop and knead by hand for about 10 minutes, adding 1 tablespoon of flour as necessary until dough is slightly sticky and smooth and elastic.
Shape dough into a ball, place in a lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours.
Meanwhile, make the filling: Grind the walnuts, sugar and cocoa powder in a food processor until finely ground like coarse sand, and transfer to a medium bowl. In a medium saucepan, bring milk and butter to a boil, then pour the liquid over the nut mixture. Add egg yolk and vanilla and mix thoroughly. Set aside until mixture comes to room temperature.
Punch down risen dough and on a lightly floured surface, roll out dough into a 10-inch square. Brush with 1 teaspoon of melted butter, if desired.
Using your hands or a rolling pin, very carefully spread dough thin; so thin, that you can see through it to the countertop. Spoon filling evenly over dough.
Roll the dough carefully from the long end like a jelly roll, using a bench scraper to scrape any stubborn dough up from the countertop. Carefully place rope into a greased 8-by-4-inch loaf pan into the shape of a U with the ends meeting in the middle (or really, however it ends up in the pan that resembles a uniform loaf shape). Brush the top of the loaf with beaten egg white and sprinkle with sugar, if desired. Cover pan lightly with plastic wrap and let rise 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Uncover pan and bake bread for 15 minutes. Decrease oven temperature to 300 degrees F and bake bread for another 30-40 minutes, checking on the loaf after 20 minutes to make sure it’s not too brown (if it is, cover with a dome of aluminum foil to prevent over-browning). Bake until a thermometer inserted in the center of the dough reads 200-210 degrees F. Remove pan from oven and allow bread to cool in pan on a cooling rack for 20-30 minutes, then allow to cool completely outside of pan before slicing and serving.

If I ran my own bed and breakfast, I’d bake these cinnamon rolls every morning. Scratch that — when I have my own bed and breakfast, I will bake these cinnamon rolls every morning. I’ll be just like Sookie on “Gilmore Girls.” (Salmon puffs. Sal-mon puffs.)

Truth be told, I may never have enough time or energy or know-how to have my own bed and breakfast, and that’s OK. But one thing is for sure — these cinnamon rolls will always be in my (near) future.

There’s something about the taste of gingerbread that whisks me away to my childhood. I don’t know if it’s memories of making gingerbread houses with our neighborhood group of kids, or chomping the heads off of gingerbread men around the holidays (such a sweet memory, I know), but one bite of gingerbread and I can’t help but feel all holly jolly inside. Combine that with the coziness of a warm cinnamon roll on a weekend morning and I’m as happy as a kid on Christmas morning.

The flavor of gingerbread in these cinnamon rolls is subtle — it sneaks up on you between bites of soft, buttery roll and sweet cinnamon-vanilla glaze. I find they’re best topped with tart sugared cranberries, but the glaze alone is enough to put these over the moon. It’s the perfect recipe to wake up your kids with on Christmas morning (though growing up, my excitement would wake me up well before then) or make for a holiday brunch gathering. Or, maybe, at your imaginary future bed and breakfast. Whatever works.

Gingerbread Cinnamon Rolls
Courtesy of Better Homes & Gardens

Yields: 12 cinnamon rolls

Ingredients:
4 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast (2 packages)
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1/3 cup molasses
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

For the glaze —
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
4 to 5 tablespoons milk

Directions:
In a large bowl or bowl of a stand mixer fixed with paddle attachment, whisk yeast with 1/4 cup warm water. Let stand 5 minutes.
Stir in milk, molasses, brown sugar, egg, oil and salt. Stir in 1 cup flour, then replace paddle attachment with dough hook. Add enough flour until dough pulls away from sides of the bowl (you may not use all the flour). Increase speed to medium and knead for 5 minutes, adding 1 tablespoon flour at a time as necessary until you end up with a smooth, elastic dough (you can also knead by hand on a lightly floured surface for 10 minutes until you end up with a smooth, elastic dough). Shape dough into a ball and place in a large, lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
Punch risen dough down and place on a lightly floured surface. Cover and let rest 10 minutes.
Grease a 13-by-9-inch pan and set aside. In a small bowl, whisk together brown sugar, sugar, cinnamon and ginger. Roll dough out into a 12-by-8-inch rectangle and brush melted butter on top of dough. Sprinkle evenly with brown sugar mixture and roll up tightly from the long end, pinching to seal. Cut log into 12 equal pieces and space evenly in 13-by-9-inch pan. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 45 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Uncover risen rolls and bake 20-25 minutes until puffed and golden brown. In the meantime, make your glaze: Whisk together powdered sugar, cinnamon, vanilla extract and enough milk to make a drippy glaze. Remove rolls from oven and let cool 5 minutes before drizzling with glaze. Top with frozen cranberries rolled in sugar and serve warm.

Thanksgiving is almost upon us, people! Does that freak you out? It shouldn’t; it really shouldn’t. Even if the turkey is tough and the pies are burnt to a crisp and all you’ve got left to eat are dinner rolls and a marshmallow fluff and green Jell-O salad, hey, it’s OK. Are you surrounded by the people you love? Are you healthy and safe and have a roof over your head? Then that’s all that matters.

Of course, truth be told, I know I’d still blow a bit of a gasket if all I had to eat on Thanksgiving was a gelatinous salad and dinner rolls (though if it were these dinner rolls, I might chill out a bit). I’ve always been one for tradition, and unless there is a sincerely relevant reason for straying from what we always do, I get a little hostile. I know, crazytown. But I need my sweet potato casserole and cranberry sauce in the shape of a can!

OK, not need. Definitely not need. But most certainly want.

One of those random-but-necessary traditions we do every. single. year. (you heard me, Mom. Don’t even think about leaving this out this year.) is serve spinach dip in a Hawaiian sweet bread roll. It’s the most retro-ly awesome and delicious pre-Thanksgiving dinner appetizer, and we all devour it alongside our deviled eggs and cheese and crackers (hope you’re listening, Mom). It’s almost all usually store-bought, too, which is fine, but I wanted to mix things up a bit this year. So, I made my own Hawaiian bread.

Good grief. Where has this been all my life? Oh, that’s right. Conveniently available at the grocery store. But certainly not as delicious.

Did you know Hawaiian bread (or as it’s sometimes called, Portuguese sweet bread) is often made with potato flour (or in this case, mashed potatoes)? Who knew? Luckily, that makes it one of those easy-to-rise breads. And what’s more, most of that rising occurs in the oven — when I put the bread in the oven, it was a typical free-form loaf, but when I took it out, it had transformed into that signature glossy, puffed dome. And the taste? Well, let’s just put it this way — you don’t even need the spinach dip on the side to enjoy it (but that doesn’t mean we won’t still have it, Mom!).

P.S. Mom, I love you, even if you don’t make all the things we normally have for Thanksgiving. But I might secretly go cry about it later. Just saying. Hugs!

Hawaiian Sweet Bread
Adapted from Baking Bites

Yields: 1 free-form round, about 10 rolls or 1 sandwich loaf

Ingredients:

1 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 tablespoons warm water
1/2 cup sugar, divided
1/4 cup instant mashed potatoes, cooled
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons warm milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2-3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed and softened

Directions:

In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, whisk together yeast, water, 1 tablespoon sugar and mashed potatoes. Let sit for 5 minutes. Add remaining sugar, lemon juice, milk, salt, eggs and 1 cup flour and stir thoroughly to combine. Replace paddle attachment with dough hook and add 1/2 cup more flour and butter, mixing on low speed until smooth. Add more flour a few tablespoons at a time, mixing on low speed, until the dough starts to come away from the sides of the bowl.
Increase speed to medium and knead about 5-6 minutes, adding more flour as necessary until the dough is slightly sticky but no longer tacky. Alternatively, remove the dough from the bowl and knead for 10 minutes on a lightly floured surface until slightly sticky. You might not use all the flour, and that’s OK.
Shape dough into a ball and place in a lightly greased bowl covered with plastic wrap until doubled, about 2 to 3 hours.
Turn risen dough out onto a lightly floured surface and punch down. Shape into a large free-form round, into rolls or into a sandwich loaf (see here for how to shape it). Place free-form loaf or rolls onto a lightly floured baking stone or parchment paper-lined baking sheet; place rectangle into a lightly greased 8-by-4-inch loaf pan. Cover with a towel and let rise 45 minutes to 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Bake bread for 30-40 minutes until a deep golden brown or when an instant-read thermometer inserted in the bottom of the loaf reads 200 degrees F. Remove from oven and cool completely on a cooling rack before slicing or serving.
Note: If you want to make this ahead of time for Thanksgiving, you can cover the bread tightly in plastic wrap, then aluminum foil, and place in freezer until turkey day. Just be sure to take it out of the freezer and let it sit on the counter about 12 hours before you want to serve it.

I know what you’re thinking.

This is a Thanksgiving food. I know. I know. And it’s not even Halloween yet.

Here’s the thing — I get really excited about holidays. And I get even more excited about holiday food. It’s a strange compulsion, one I’m trying to work out with my imaginary therapist, but the fact remains that the minute the leaves fall from the trees, many of my thoughts surround what is going on the menu for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I can literally taste the cranberry sauce that comes out of the can — still looking like the can — on my tongue (I love that stuff. Seriously. Don’t judge.), and I can smell turkey baking as I walk through the crunchy leaves on the sidewalk. Maybe that’s just me continuing to lose my mind, I don’t know, but if I’m going to lose it by smelling and tasting holiday foods, that’s fine by me.

Anyway, enough of that. Another (more sane, legitimate) reason I made these seasonal rolls, here and now, is because I am a big plan-ahead-er. You may not know this, but I generally am not one for spontaneity. Sure, I like to mix things up a bit, as long as I know exactly how they’re going to happen. Confession: I made a day-of-wedding itinerary for my wedding party with down-to-the-minute times of when everything was going to go down. It was a dark time for me.

But I am planning to serve up these rolls for Thanksgiving, which is at our place again this year, and making and freezing as many foods as possible before the big day is a huge weight off my holiday-loving shoulders.

So really, these rolls say a lot about who I am, which also is to say that I absolutely love sweet potato bread, of any kind. It’s not only insanely easy to make and nearly foolproof (I divulge my secret love of all potato-based breads here), but it tastes delicious. Like a holiday on a roll. If that’s not enough to get you in the kitchen right away, well, you might be almost crazier than I am. Almost.

Brown Butter Sweet Potato Buttermilk Rolls
Adapted from Pinch My Salt

Yields: About 16 rolls

Ingredients:
1 cup mashed cooked sweet potato, slightly warm or at room temperature
2 cups buttermilk, at room temperature
1 egg, at room temperature
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus 2 tbsp for browned butter
1/4 cup sugar
4 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
2 1/2 tsp salt
6 to 7 cups bread flour

Directions:
In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fixed with the whisk attachment, whisk together sweet potato, buttermilk, egg, butter, sugar and yeast until thoroughly combined.
Replace whisk attachment with paddle attachment and stir in one cup flour with the salt. Gradually add more flour, about a cup at a time, until mixture turns into a soft dough. If using a stand mixer, switch to the dough hook and knead on medium speed for 5-6 minutes, adding more flour as necessary until dough pulls away from the sides and is slightly sticky but not tacky; and if kneading by hand, place dough on floured countertop and begin to knead, 8-10 minutes, adding more flour as necessary until dough is smooth, elastic and slightly sticky. Note: You might not use all the flour, and that’s OK.
Shape dough into a round ball and place in a lightly greased bowl. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
Punch down risen dough and cut in half with a knife or pizza cutter. Cut into quarters, then into 8 pieces, then into 16. Roll each piece into a ball, pulling the skin taut on the top so its smooth and round. Place rolls on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet or baking stone about 1 inch apart. Let rolls rise, uncovered, 15-20 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Meanwhile, brown your butter: Place 2 tbsp unsalted butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Let butter melt, stirring occasionally, until it turns a golden brown. Remove from heat and pour into a small bowl.
Gently press down on the tops of the rolls to flatten them slightly. Using a pastry brush, brush the tops of the rolls with the browned butter. Bake rolls for 20 to 25 minutes until puffed and lightly brown. Cool completely on a cooling rack before serving.
To freeze, cover rolls, connected and in tact or split into two parts, with plastic wrap, then with heavy-duty aluminum foil. They should keep well for up to 8 weeks.

I’m starting anew.

With the way life has been lately, it’s the only way to go. I’m not complaining — in fact, I’ve learned more about myself, about others, about life in general these past couple of months than I have in a long time, and I am grateful. It’s another step in the process of growing up, I guess (”If only someone had told us when we were in high school how tough it is to be an adult!” my friends and I say. Ah, hindsight is 20/20).

So, instead of crawling back into a cave, where everything seems comfortable and easy and unobtrusive (and yet, ignorant and stagnant), I’m pressing forward. And I’m taking this stromboli with me.

The first time I made stromboli, I was worried. I was worried it would taste boring, with too much crust and not enough filling, or that all of the filling would spill out of the bottom leaving me with a pizza crust skeleton and a lovely mess of cheese on the side. That is my way, worrying. But I forged ahead anyway, as is also my way these days. And I’m glad I did, because on the other end of the bridge was me and this glorious goodness — this ooey-gooey, cheesy and crusty wonder — stuffed with pieces of tender, juicy chicken and crisp, roasted broccoli. One bite, and my worries were gone.

Of course, a stromboli won’t take all of your cares away. It won’t make the rain turn into rainbows, and it won’t turn a bad egg into a golden one. In the end, it’s just a stromboli. But sometimes, that’s all we need, isn’t it? Just a little something, something to remind us of the small joys in life, something that shows us, in the deepest, darkest of caves, that there is goodness on the other side. And I’m going there, headfirst, belly full.

P.S. Check out this equally yummy Mushroom Fontina Stromboli over at Tablespoon.

Cheesy Chicken & Broccoli Stromboli
A Girl Versus Dough original

Yields: 1 stromboli (serves 2 for dinner, 4 for a side dish/appetizer)

Ingredients:
1 of your favorite pizza crusts, prepared and ready to bake
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese (or a mix of any of your favorite, melty cheeses)
1 1/2 cups broccoli florets and chopped stems, roasted until only slightly crunchy
1 cup cubed, cooked chicken
1 cup sharp cheddar cheese (or a mix of any of your favorite, melty cheeses)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
On a pizza stone or parchment paper-lined baking sheet, press dough into a 14-by-10-inch rectangle. Sprinkle 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese on middle length of the dough. Top evenly with broccoli, then chicken. Top with cheddar cheese.
Fold in short sides of dough by 1 inch, then fold in long sides over each other, overlapping in the center. Pinch to seal. Carefully flip dough over so the seal is on the bottom (if you’re nervous about this step, skip it: The stromboli just looks prettier with the seal on the bottom, but it’s not necessary).
Bake stromboli for about 20 minutes, or until crust is a deep golden brown. Let cool 10 minutes before slicing or serving.

I’m trying to get back into the swing of things. Life is slowly getting back to normal — well, a new normal, that is. Grief is a funny thing, because even if you’ve been through it before, the pain never gets easier. But I have learned that the only way to get through it is to just live, every day, putting one foot in front of the other. And eventually, I find ground again.

It’s taken me a while to regain my passion for anything again, but I’m getting there. Even food was tasteless for so long — too long. How I dearly missed the good taste of food, and baking. It was hard to get myself back into the kitchen, to dip my hands into the cool flour and hear the gentle whir of dough kneading in the stand mixer. But once those familiar senses returned, so did my rhythm: Rhythm in a new reality, maybe, but one in which baking still fills me with joy.

I know you’ve probably seen, tried and/or tasted a million cinnamon raisin breads before, but if you haven’t had the pleasure of making it from scratch in your home kitchen, seriously, now is the time. No, seriously. It’s too amazing to push aside so you can watch another episode of “Real Housewives.”

OK. You can watch it. But then immediately bake this bread, please.

In just a couple of hours, your kitchen will smell heavenly, like a warm cloud of cinnamony, raisiny, sugary goodness. And when you slice into this bread and take a whiff of those pretty cinnamon swirls studded with soft, sweet raisins and then top it with butter, peanut butter, jam or cream cheese, you might begin to question whether or not this really is real life. It is real life, my friend. Even in a downtrodden world, where crappy things happen that we can’t always understand, good things — like yummy, homemade bread — can still happen, too.

Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread
A Girl Versus Dough original

Yields: 1 loaf

Ingredients:
1 cup warm water
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup skim milk powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
2 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour (unbleached, all-purpose flour works just fine, too)
egg wash (1 egg + 1 tbsp water, beaten)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup raisins
2 tbsp sugar

Directions:
In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine water, oil, sugar, skim milk powder, salt and yeast. Whisk with paddle attachment until well blended and let sit 5 minutes.
Add in a cup of flour and stir to combine. Add in another cup of flour and repeat.
Replace paddle attachment with dough hook and increase speed to medium. Add just enough of remaining flour until dough is slightly sticky, but pulls away from the sides of the bowl (you might have to add more than 2 1/2 cups flour total, but try not to go over too much). Knead five minutes in stand mixer or 10 minutes by hand, until dough is smooth and elastic.
Place in a lightly greased bowl, cover with lightly greased plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
Punch down risen dough and, on a lightly floured surface, roll out to a 9 x 14-inch rectangle. Top dough with egg wash, cinnamon, raisins and sugar. Bring in the long sides by a 1/2-inch and carefully roll up dough from the short side, careful to keep sides tucked in. Pinch seam closed with slightly wet fingers.
Place bread in a lightly greased 8 x 4-inch loaf pan, cover with lightly greased plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Remove plastic wrap from top of loaf pan and bake until bread is a deep, golden brown and makes a hollow sound when you thwack it on the bottom, about 30 minutes. Remove from oven and loaf pan and cool completely on a cooling rack before slicing.

I knew about this one.

I knew about this one the first time I saw it.

I knew, like the way you know about a good melon, that this bread would be fantastic.

And sure enough, I was right. Very right.

This is the kind of bread you make when you’re having a bad day. It’s the kind of bread you make when your house smells like a cat/old quesadillas/laundry that is a tad overdue. Not that I know what those smell like.

It’s the kind of bread you make when you really want dessert, but you want to be healthy, so you figure if you work real hard (or not really that hard) you’ll deserve dessert.

Though you shouldn’t have to deserve dessert. If you want dessert, then by golly, have it. Yes. I just said “by golly.” Moving along.

This is also the kind of bread you make when you have a taste for cinnamon. Or browned butter. Or nutmeg. Or butter. Or all of the above.

I can see this bread tasting just as delicious all citrusy, or with apples worked into the dough, or perhaps tinged with orange zest. But this way, too, is perfect. Like a good melon.

Cinnamon Browned Butter Pull-Apart Loaf
Adapted from Joy the Baker

Yields: 1 loaf

Ingredients:

For the dough –
2 3/4 cups plus 2 tbsp unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 stick unsalted butter
1/3 cup soy milk (regular milk works just fine, too)
1/4 cup water
2 large eggs, room temperature
1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract

For the filling –
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of ground nutmeg
1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted until browned

Directions:
In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine 2 cups flour, sugar, yeast and salt. Set aside.
Whisk eggs in a small bowl and set aside.
In a small saucepan, melt butter and milk over medium-low heat until butter is just melted. Remove from heat and add water and vanilla extract. Cool to 115 degrees F.
Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture and stir on low speed. Add eggs and stir until everything is just mixed, about 2 minutes. Add the remaining 3/4 cup of flour and stir on low-medium speed (about #2 or #4 on your stand mixer) for about 2 minutes. The dough will be quite sticky, but that’s OK.
Pour the dough into a lightly greased bowl, cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
In the meantime, whisk together sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg in a small bowl and set aside. Melt butter in a small sauce pan until just browned and set aside. Grease a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan and set aside.
Remove risen dough from bowl, punch down and knead in 2 tbsp of flour. Let rest for five minutes, covered with a kitchen towel. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough using a rolling pin into a 20 x 12-inch rectangle. Brush on the butter, then sprinkle evenly the cinnamon-sugar mixture.
Slice the dough north to south into six even strips. Stack the strips and slice that stack into six equal squares (you’ll have six stacks of six squares). Prop up the loaf pan on the rolling pin and stack the squares cut-side down into the pan so it looks like a stack of papers. Sprinkle some of the extra cinnamon-sugar mixture that spilled on the countertop on the top of the loaf. Cover the pan and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. When dough is doubled, uncover and bake about 35 minutes, or until the top of the dough is a deep, dark brown. Remove from oven and allow to cool in pan for about 20 minutes. Then, run a butter knife along the edges of the pan to loosen the loaf, invert onto a plate and then invert again, ride side up, onto a pretty plate to serve. Serve warm.

As you may or may not know, I’m a fan of beer. I’m a really big fan of wine, but I’ve already put that into a pizza crust. I’ve put beer into bread before, too, but I wanted to use it in a pizza crust, as well. Just you wait — next time, I’ll make a bread with wine in it.

(Maybe. I can’t make any promises. It makes me nervous.)

In any case, the reality of this story is that I’ve made quite a few versions of pizza crust before. It’s kind of on par with my obsession with biscuits. I really branch out, I know. But what makes this particular pizza crust stand out — what makes it really, extra special — is the flavor: That classic yeasty beer bread-like flavor, only in pizza dough form. In other words, it’s fantastic.

The recipe for this crust lends itself well to a darker beer, which is kind of confusing, as it’s the opposite case when it comes to beer breads. So bust out the oatmeal stout for this one and drink the Hefeweizen — though I didn’t read the directions thoroughly enough beforehand and used a wheat beer when making my dough. But all was not lost. Though the flavor wasn’t a one-two punch in the face, there was still a hint of that yeasty flavor in the crust.

My favorite part of this pizza crust? It tastes even better the next day. The flavors, given overnight to relax and have a cold one themselves, double in intensity over time. For fans of cold, leftover pizza like myself (and beer, see above), this is fantastic news.

Beer Pizza Crust
Adapted from King Arthur Flour

Yields: 2 crusts

Ingredients:
4 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour OR 2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour and 1 1/2 cups semolina OR 2 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour and 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (what I used)
2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 cups room-temperature beer (the stronger the flavor, the better)

Directions:
Place all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fixed with a paddle attachment and mixed until just combined. Replace paddle attachment with dough hook and knead dough until smooth and elastic, about 7 minutes (or knead by hand on a lightly floured countertop for about 10 minutes). Form dough into a ball, place in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and let rise until doubled, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Remove risen dough from bowl and punch down. Divide in half and shape each piece into a 10-12 inch round or 8-by-12 inch rectangle. Place rounds or rectangles onto pizza stones or parchment paper-lined baking sheets. For thin crust, bake pizza immediately. For medium to thick crust, let dough rest for about 30 minutes.
Bake crusts without anything on them for about 5 minutes. Add meat and veggie ingredients and bake another 10 minutes. Add half the cheese and any herbs and bake another 3 minutes, then add remaining cheese and bake until cheese is just melted, about 3 more minutes. Remove from oven and let rest 10 minutes before slicing.