Two Fab Recipes, and Yes, Another Bunny

Here is the bread I made the other night. It is a no-knead recipe and delightfully quick to make. I got the recipe from this lovely blog, and you can see her gorgeous photos of the bread here. This was super easy to mix up on a busy afternoon, rises for only an hour and then you just dump it into the loaf pan and bake it directly--no second rise. The bread was light and soft and yeasty and delicious and makes great toast the next day (I love that).
More recently (last night) I tried this recipe for "Cookie Breakup" from a back issue of Everyday Food magazine. I'd been meaning to try this recipe for quite awhile and was shocked to see the issue is three years old! Yikes, time flies. I was interested in making a crisp cookie and was not disappointed. Yum! You press the crumbly dough into a pan, bake, cool, then break it up like brittle. I think this would be excellent with a delightful cup of tea. It kind of reminds me of shortbread because there's no egg.And finally, a fourth bunny. Did I mention that I enjoy making these? Well, Rainer needed one for his crib at daycare. This bunny is a tiny bit different. You can barely see it in the photo, but he has a ribbon tag for a tail. Kind of fun for baby to have something extra (besides the ears) to grasp and pull on. I'm also thinking now these would be nice with some kind of chime or bell or rattle sewn in, but alas, I did not do that.

Here are the recipes:

No-Knead Bread

Combine:
2 c. flour
1/4 c. sugar
1 T. salt
2 pkgs. dry yeast (1/4 oz. each)

Heat until warm: [I just stirred these together in a glass measuring cup and heated in the micro for a minute or two]
1 c. water
1 c. milk
1/4 c. vegetable oil

Have on hand:
1 egg
2 to 2 1/2 c. flour
butter

Mix egg with the warmed liquids, then stir all into flour mixture. Blend at lowest speed on mixer, then blend on medium for 3 minutes. By hand stir in another 2 to 2 1/2 c. flour [I used the full amount here]. Cover, let rise 50 minutes until light and doubled in size. Stir down. Spoon into greased 6" x 9" loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30-35 minutes. Brush top with butter.

Cookie Breakup

¾ c. unsalted butter, at room temp
1 c. sugar
½ t. salt
½ t. vanilla extract
2 c. flour
1 c. chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line a 10 x 15” rimmed baking sheet with parchment and set aside. With an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in salt and vanilla. Reduce speed to low; mix in flour (dough will be crumbly). Stir in chocolate chips.
2. Press mixture evenly onto prepared baking sheet. Bake unitl golden, about 20 minutes. Cool in pan 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. To serve, break into pieces with your hands or cut into bars with a serrated knife.