Vegan Apple Bread

Love quick breads. Love them.

Yesterday, in an effort to warm up our kitchen and use up some of the nearly inedible apples in our crisper, I made a vegan version of apple bread. It was fabulous.We have been enjoying it all week for breakfast.

Here's the recipe:

-In a small bowl combine 2 cups cooked apple chunks or chunky apple sauce or just apple sauce, 1/4 cup oil, 1/4 cup honey. (I also had some grated zucchini on hand so I threw that in. It was about a scant 1/4 cup.)
-In a larger bowl combine 1 cup white flour, 1 cup wheat flour, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/4 cup brown sugar, a few dashes of cinnamon and nutmeg.
-Add wet to dry plus 1 cup soy/coconut/almond/rice milk. Don't over mix.
-Pour into greased loaf pan and cook at 350 for about 1 hour.

"Five" Minute Pita - For Real

 In my last post I glossed over the fact that I made pita to go with our amazing falafel dinner. Lest you think that I am some kind of baking guru, let me assure you that pita bread is so so so easy to make. The only "technical" piece of equipment you need is a pizza stone. But I think you could probably use a baking sheet and make it work.

Last spring I posted about the wonders of the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes book. You can make a really good loaf of bread following their method. But you can make really incredible pita bread. What I mean to say is: You can make the best pita ever. And it really takes no time at all.

Here is their basic bread recipe with step by step instructions and photos. Once you have made a bucket, or pot, or big bowl of dough you can do all kinds of things with it. Obviously, you can shape a whole loaf of bread, or make bread sticks, or a pizza etc. But if you want to have fresh bread ASAP, make pita.

Here's what you do:
-Heat your oven with a pizza stone to 400. If you don't have a stone, put a heavy duty baking sheet in the oven and let it get hot.
-Scoop out a small handful of dough and roll it out to about 1/4 to 1/8 inch. You will need lots of flour.
-Use a pizza peel to slide the flattened dough on to the stone. Or, place the dough on parchment and use a pan or cookie sheet to slide it onto the hot baking surface.
-Turn on your oven light, call the kids and watch your flat dough bubble up and become pita. Takes about 7 minutes. Highly entertaining.
-BTW: If you prick the dough all over with a fork before putting in the oven, it wont puff and you will have lavash instead of pita. Equally delicious.

Best Ever Almond Butter

I have been a lame blogger of late. Dave took a new job that has him out of town three nights a week. Needless to say, we have been a little discombobulated around here. I have not exactly been a model of cooking excellence.

Until today.

Today I made Cinnamon Raisin Almond Butter. (That's right, this qualifies as cooking in my book.) I saw a post about this on the Tasty Kitchen blog and I decided to give in a try. It took about as long as it takes to play four Uno games with Kara. Not only did she have fun measuring the almonds, but watching nuts turn to butter turned out to be completely fascinating to both my kids.

I made the recipe as written by Eating Bird Food with two changes: She says that if you just process the ingredients long enough in your food processor, it will get smooth and creamy. Well, that might be the case, but I started to fear for the health of my Cuisinart, so I added about 3 tablespoons of peanut oil. Worked like a charm. Also, I added a couple squeezes of honey.

Can't wait to have this for breakfast tomorrow. Can't wait to share it with Dave when he comes home.

Homemade Challah

Challah is one of my most favorite things on this earth. Next to my family, friends, etc., of course. But seriously, challah is probably the yummiest bread I know. If you don't know from challah, you are missing out. Get yourself out to a good deli or bakery and grab a loaf. Sweet, rich and soft egg bread, challah is the perfect breakfast toast, the best pb&j bread and hands down the best French toast bread - it's not even a contest.

In my continuing quest to make my own bread, I made some challah a few weeks back. It wasn't quite as good as the bread my Grandma Bea gets for me when we visit, but it was a close second. It's really easy to make and looked gorgeous. This would be super fun to do with little ones too.

This recipe should make 2 loaves.

-In a large bowl mix 2 eggs, 1/4 melted butter, 2 1/4 cups lukewarm water, 1/4 cup honey, 1 1/2 tbsp yeast
-Add 3 1/2 cups flour and mix until combined. The dough will be wet and shaggy.
-Let rise for at least 2 hours.

This is what the dough looks like just mixed. (Nice bread bucket, right?) It expands quite a bit, so make sure you use a big bowl or pot to avoid a dough fiasco on your counter.

-At this point, you can make your bread, or refrigerate the dough for up to 4 days. I recommend refrigerating the dough for at least a couple of hours - cold dough is just easier to work with.

-When you are ready to bake: Divide dough in half. Divide each half in to three pieces and roll into long ropes - about 12 inches each. You will need to flour your hands and work surface to keep from having a sticky, frustrating dough mess. Line up the 3 pieces of dough and starting from the center braid out to one end and then repeat so that you have one big braid. Pinch the ends together. Place braided loaves on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Let stand for at least an hour.

 I don't usually do the step-by-step photo thing, but I was 

pretty proud of myself during this cooking endevor.

-Heat oven to 350. Brush the tops of the bread with egg wash. Bake for 25-35 minutes.

 I made one plain loaf and for the second loaf  I improvised a cinnamon raisin version. I just rolled out each strand of dough, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and about a 1/2 cup of raisins. I closed up each strand and then braided as usual. It was fabulous!

One more tip: This is a dough scraper, a tool I had never even heard of until a month ago. If you ever make anything involving dough, you should invest. And by invest I mean plunk down the whole 5 bucks that this costs. It is great for cutting, measuring, dividing and, clearly, scraping up dough. Amazing gadget that I wish I had owned before a month ago.

Quick Breads

I am not by any means an accomplished baker. I can make cookies, brownies and the occasional cake, but my lack of precision in the kitchen does not really lend itself to baking. I may scoff at recipes that suggest that you weigh the flour instead of just using your fingers to brush off the excess in the measuring cup, but it turns out that attention to detail really does make a difference when baking.

Quick breads, I have found, are the exception to this rule. Make one, you can make them all. Make one, and you can make a dozen variations. Make one with your kids, they will have the pleasure of eating a snack that they cooked with you.

Banana bread is the gateway quick bread. It is nearly impossible to mess up and can be a template for countless iterations of baked goods (like the apple sauce raisin bread I wrote about a few weeks ago).

My favorite banana bread recipe is from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

• Preheat oven to 350 and grease a loaf pan.
• In a small bowl mash 3 super ripe bananas. (Tip: If your bananas go dark brown before you are ready to use them, just toss them in the freezer and defrost when you are ready to bake. Also, if you are dying to have banana bread, but your bananas are actually fresh, you can ripen them in the oven.)
• Add 2 eggs to bananas and set aside.
• In a mixing bowl combine 2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp baking soda.
• Combine wet and dry and pour into pan. Bake 1 hour. 

This will all take about 10 minutes to prepare.

Some variations to consider:

• Only have one brown banana? Use pureed pumpkin, sweet potato, carrot, zucchini (grated) or apple sauce to supplement. No bananas at all, just pick a different fruit/vegetable.
• No fruit or veggie to add in, you can use dried fruit instead and add more liquid to the batter (milk, juice, soy milk, water, yogurt, kefir, sour cream etc.) You may also need to add a little more sugar if you want to keep the bread on the "fruity" end of the spectrum.
• Add some wheat germ, ground flax or quick oats for a little more texture. 
• Experiment with different sweeteners: honey, molasses, agave, brown sugar etc.
• Add chocolate chips and make it sweeter.
• Add some fat - butter or oil - to make a richer loaf.
• Top it with streusel.

It's Carbtacular!

If there is one thing that I particularly love about the Thanksgiving feast, it's the complete overindulgence in all that is carby. When else would we think it is necessary to serve at least two kinds of potatoes? What other meal demands that one serve butter rolls to go with all the other buttery concoctions? As Dave likes to say, "It's carbtacular!"

Make this recipe - Your rolls will actually look like this. Promise.

This year, I found the most delicious recipe for dinner rolls. This is a version of the Pioneer Woman's Buttered Rosemary Rolls. But instead of using frozen dinner rolls from a store, I make dinner roll dough in the bread machine. Here is dinner roll recipe that I use from Tasty Kitchen contributor, Sprucehill. You can find a step by step and pictures of the recipe on her very cool blog.

These rolls are great no matter how you cook them. But I highly recommend busting out your cast iron skillet if you have one. (If you don't have one, ask Santa, or other gift-giving entities, to hook you up ASAP. It is an inexpensive and invaluable kitchen tool.) Check out Pioneer Woman's steps, but the basic idea is:
-Make or purchase dinner roll dough
-Place balls of dough in a cast iron skillet that is generously coated in butter. I use seven balls, like in the picture from the PW site.
-Cover and let rise in a warm place for about 30 minutes. Brush with more melted butter and sprinkle on spices to suit your tastes. I think they are especially good with a little Parmesan grated on top.
-Bake at 375 or 400, depending on your oven, for 15-20 minutes

These are so soft and delicious. Not to mention that they look beautiful - a great addition to your holiday feast. Because you can never have too many carbs.