Baking recipes

Scroll through our posts below to try all sorts of delicious baking recipes from our instagram baking videos. New baking videos are posted the first week of each month on Instagram and Facebook.

To easily find one of our recipes type below:

Bread Recipes Deidre Lotecki Bread Recipes Deidre Lotecki

Hot Cross Buns! Hot Cross Buns! One a penny, two a penny, Hot Cross BUNS!

Hot cross buns! These festive Easter rolls are rolling with flavour! They are made of a lightly sweetened dough, studded with dried fruit, orange zest and a little dash of cinnamon! Apparently they were created as a sweet treat to end your fasting for lent, but don’t you worry, no fasting is required to indulge in these babies!

I forgot to take a picture before taking a bite…whoopsie!

I forgot to take a picture before taking a bite…whoopsie!


Hot Cross Buns

Yield: 6 buns (I fit them into a 10”x6” loaf pan so they would bake into one another, but use whatever pan you like, or double the recipe and it will fit perfectly into a 9”x13” pan)

Once dough is shaped, preheat your oven to 350*F

Bun Dough:

  • 2/3 cup Milk, warm but not boiling

  • 1 teaspoon Instant Yeast

  • 2 Tablespoons Butter, melted

  • 2 Tablespoons Sugar

  • 1 teaspoon Salt

  • 1 Egg

  • 1 1/2 cups Flour

  • 1 teaspoon Cinnamon

  • zest of 1 Orange (or if your orange is giant like mine, I just tested 1/2 of it)

Dough Fruits:

  • 1/2 cup Dried Fruit - I used raisins and dried cranberries

  • 1 teaspoon Grand Marnier (optional)

Cross Dough:

  • 2-3 Tablespoons Flour

  • enough juice of your orange (or water or milk) to get a nice consistency, about 1-2 Tablespoons

Egg Wash:

  • 1 Egg

  • pinch Salt

  • pinch Sugar

  1. Place your dried fruit into a small bowl, then cover with boiling water and set to the side.

  2. In the bowl of your mixer, combine all the ingredients of your dough - milk, yeast, butter, sugar, salt, egg, flour, cinnamon and orange zest.

  3. Using the dough hook on the mixer, knead the dough on medium-low speed for about 10-15 minutes or until the dough comes together into a sticky ball around the dough hook. This is a pretty sticky dough, but it should be VERY glutinous in you grab it and not be sticking to the sides of your bowl too much.

  4. Drain your dried fruits and press out any excess moisture, then stir with the 1 teaspoon of Grand Mariner if you are using it.

  5. Now pour your dried fruits into the dough and knead for 2-3 more minutes or until they are combined.

  6. Place your dough into a greased bowl, cover, and let sit at room temperature until doubled, about 1 hour.

  7. Once your dough has rested, place it onto a floured counter and lightly press into circle, then cut into 6 even pieces.

  8. Roll each piece into a ball and place into a greased and lined baking pan.

  9. Once all the dough is in the pan, cover it with some saran wrap, and let it sit at room temperature for about an hour, or until doubled.

  10. While your dough is resting, mix together your cross dough - combine about 3 tablespoons of flour with enough orange juice to create a pipeable consistency (you can also use water or milk for this). Place this into a piping bag or a ziplock bag that you can cut the corner off of to pipe with.

  11. For the egg wash, whisk together your egg with the pinch of salt and sugar.

  12. Once your dough has rested carefully glaze the buns with your egg wash.

  13. Now using the piping bag, pipe a cross on top of each bun.

  14. Bake in a preheated 350*F oven for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown and delicious!

  15. Time to eat before the Easter bunny gets to them!

Make your own hot cross buns! Easter bunny ain't got nothing on us!

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Bar Recipes Deidre Lotecki Bar Recipes Deidre Lotecki

Date Bars, some call them "Matrimonial Slice" but you know commitment issues...we're just DATING!

Sometimes I am a 100 year old women, why? BECAUSE I LOVE DATE BARS! They are buttery, soft, crunchy, cinnamon-y, and sweet! Plus, they are made of dried fruit and oats, so as far as I’m concerned they are a breakfast food. If you aren’t into the dates, you can also replace the date filling with the apple pie filling we made for our turnovers a few days ago, just double the apple filling recipe so you use 2 apples!

Date Bars for when your not allowed to go on dates to bars.

Date Bars for when your not allowed to go on dates to bars.


Date Bars

Yield: one 8”x8” pan or something of a similar size

Preheat your oven to 350*F

Date Filling:

  • 2 1/2 cups roughly chopping Dried Dates (about one pound)

  • 1 cup Water

  • 1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice

  • 1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda

  • 1/4 teaspoon Salt

  • 1 Tablespoon Butter

  • 1 Tablespoon Grand Marnier (optional)

Streusel:

  • 3/4 cup Butter, soft

  • 1 cup Brown Sugar

  • 1 1/4 cup Flour

  • 1 1/4 cup Oats

  • 1/2 teaspoon Salt

  • 1/4 teaspoon Baking Powder

  • 1 teaspoon Cinnamon

  1. In a small pot over medium heat cook your dates, water, lemon juice, baking soda, salt and butter until it thickens and forms a puree type mixture. Remove from heat. (If your don’t want any larger date chunks you can puree this mixture in a food processor, but I like the texture so I just leave it as is!)

  2. Add the Grand Marnier if using, then set to the side.

  3. In a large bowl combine all the Streusel ingredients and rub them together with your hands until they are combined.

  4. In a greased and lined 8”x8” pan pour about 2/3 of your streusel mixture and press into the bottom of the pan to form a crust.

  5. Pour all of your date filling on top of the base crust and smooth it out evenly making sure to cover the entire base.

  6. Now take the last 1/3 of streusel and crumble it on top of the date layer.

  7. Bake in a preheated 350*F oven for about 25-35 minutes or until just starting to turn golden brown on the edges.

  8. Let cool, then slice and eat! Or add to your tray of dainties if you are having a fancy team party like I wish I was having right now!

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

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Bar Recipes Deidre Lotecki Bar Recipes Deidre Lotecki

Granola Bars - dreaming about when we need quick breakfasts again!

Granola bars are my go to breakfast when I am not stuck in my house avoiding the general public and daily life…oh the days before social distancing, seems like so long ago…it was only 4 days…just a few more to go, right! These babies are easy to prepare and then once cooled you can wrap them up individually and pop them in the freezer, all ready to go for easy snacking!


Granola Bars!

Granola Bars!

Granola Bars

Yield: 9”x13” pan

Preheat your oven to 350*F

  • 1/3 cup Butter

  • 1/3 cup Brown Sugar

  • 3/4 teaspoon Salt

  • 1 cup Honey or Maple Syrup (if you don’t have enough of either you can supplement with corn syrup, it just doesn’t have as much flavour)

  • 4 cups Oats- ideally old fashioned rolled oats, but use what you have, we’re in quarantine!

  • 2 cups almonds or other nut, toasted lightly in the oven

  • 2 cups shredded Coconut

  • 1 1/3 cup Dried Fruit - I used a mix of dried cranberries and raisins, with a little bit of chocolate chips!

  1. In a saucepan place the butter, brown sugar, salt and honey. Bring to a boil.

  2. While that is heating, mix together the oats, almonds, coconut and dried fruit to combine.

  3. Pour the honey butter mixture on top of the oat mixture and stir to combine.

  4. Grease a 9”x13” pan, then place a piece of parchment on the bottom and grease that as well.

  5. Pour granola bar mixture into the pan and with damp or greased hands just press it into the pan until it feels firm.

  6. Bake for about 20 minutes or until lightly golden.

  7. Let cool (ideally overnight or for a few hours) and slice into bar sized pieces - I like to wrap them individually in saran wrap and pop them in the freezer, but you can also just crumble up the granola and put it into a jar for eating on top of yogurt or fruit. Yum!

We're in quarantine baking granola bars! One day we can go back to work and we will be stocked up with lots of snacks for work lunches!

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