A Touch of Sweet

This weeks nut bread is one of my favorite. This Date Nut gem uses very little oil as dates work as sweetener and oil substitute.

Date Nut Bread

1-1/2 cups boiling water
1 cup chopped dates
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
2 cups unbleached flour

½ cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 Tbs. oil
1 tsp. vanilla

Pour boiling water over dates and let stand ten minutes. Add sugar to eggs and beat. Sift dry ingredients together. Add nuts to date mixture. Stir in oil and vanilla. Mix date mixture, sugar and eggs, and dry ingredients, stirring enough to moisten. Bake in greased loaf pan at 350 degrees F. for one hour.

Wrapping a nut bread is essential to keeping it fresh for more than two days. I use good ole fashioned wax paper (parchment will also work.) this keeps the bread dry and not sticky which leads to moisture and mold. This picture shows it wrapped in wax paper and in a bag to keep air out. My breads keep for seven days.

Welcome Groundhog

Welcome to February. This month is to be my quick bread month. My goal is to reduce sugar and still keep texture and flavor, if the flavor is off the quick bread is really off. Unlike yeast breads quick breads rely on eggs and baking powder and other things to rise a little. Yeast is also a camouflage flavor enhancer thus most yeast breads taste good even if a little tough or deflated or over inflated.(note my last starter bread was a bomb!)

Presenting.........

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup brown sugar, light or dark
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 medium to large bananas)
1/4 cup honey
2 large eggs
2 cups Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350°F. In a large bowl, beat together the butter, sugar, vanilla, baking soda, and salt. Add the bananas, honey, and eggs, beating until smooth. Add the flour, then the walnuts, stirring until smooth. Spoon the batter into a lightly greased 9 x 5-inch loaf pan, smoothing the top. Let it rest at room temperature for 10 minutes. Bake the bread for 50 minutes, then gently lay a piece of aluminum foil across the top, to prevent over-browning. Bake for an additional 10 minutes, then remove the bread from the oven; a long toothpick or cake tester inserted into the center should come out clean. Allow the loaf to cool for 10 minutes before removing it from the pan, and cooling it completely on a rack.

Starter Breads

January has been my fresh start with starters. Since I run a cool house with Temps in the 60's, I have kept a starter on the counter where I can stir it and add to it daily. When I get about two cups I make a bread using one cup and add to the second. I am on my third week of breads and there is a definite differnce in flavor and texture.

This bread was an oatmeal bread with apricots.

The "leftovers" were made into bread pudding.

Hardly a week goes by then we don't need an Italian bread. Last week I made two huge loaves with the starter. The leftover was made into bread crumbs. They have an interesting taste and will be even more interesting in my fish topping this week.

My bread this week is an orange pineapple whole wheat bread. I should have shaped it like the oatmeal bread as it exploded in the bread pan. This starter bread thing is amazing!

Paper Whites Update

Well they are beginning to bloom. It is interesting to see which way they are pointing as it can change every few hours. Could be the snow on the skylight as we have had off and on snow showers for days!

New Year New Bread

This is my first attempt at ciabatta. I love the crust but not sure my inside texture was fully developed.

This bread was made from a starter sponge that was 24 hours old. I will be working with starters and sponges this month.

Since I was eperimenting with the starter I used an old favorite(my Italian bread)

the starter was one cup water and one cup flour and 1/2 tsp yeast left overnight in the bread machine to this I added 1/2 c water and then all the ingredients of my Italian bread(see my first post) this made a very soft dough that I had rise once in the machine, shaped then let set 30 min. I baked it off at 450 for 10 min and 375 for twenty min.

One very bad cat!

This little sweetie thinks he is so clever climbing the tree every time I sit down in my chair!

This four foot tree on the end table is his favorite climb as he winds his body round and round.

Paper Whites

One of my favorite things to do with kids in the winter is to grow paper whites.

My cat Dexter is very interested in my beginning to grow paper whites. I then had to put them on top of my cookbook bookcase. Well, I forgot they were there and found them Christmas eve

growing sideways as they were too close to the celing! They are now above the kitchen cabinets still getting taller ,......