Carrot-Apple Sauce-Banana Bread

The description of this loaf on grouprecipes.com says it all:

"This moist bread combines banana and carrots for a different take on a lowfat banana bread."

We make banana bread. We make carrot bread. The ingredients for each are basically the same. Why not combine the two?

I heartily agree.

I've been experimenting with healthy bread recipes that Mr. Bread Maiden and I can enjoy, but can also double as teething biscuits for Little Bread Baby.

My first recipe was the Crunchy Teething Biscuit Recipe.

I must not have baked it for long enough, because by the time it had fully cooled, it had sunken in the middle and was still quite wet and mushy.

Even so, with the second baking, they firmed up and LBB loved them. I even made little french toast sticks with them.

So this time around, I picked just a regular bread recipe. This One.

I had carrots and bananas on hand, and made quick work grating an apple for the applesauce.


Then I added the two eggs to comprise the wet ingredients.


Mix up the wet ingredients.


Now on to the dry ingredients.


Oops! What is that baking powder doing in the picture? I never used baking powder.


There, that's better.

Mix up two cups flour and one cup of sugar. I did one cup each of Whole Wheat and AP flour. Next time I think I'll cut way down on the sugar.


For some fun, I threw in some freshly-grated nutmeg.


Whisk the flour, sugar and nutmeg together with the salt and baking soda.


Now bring the wet ingredients and the dry ingredients side by side.


And mix the dry into the wet, a little at a time, with a spoon. Don't stir too much!


Now pour into a greased bread pan and pop in a 350 degree oven for about an hour.


Pull it out and let it cool.


Yummy.

But you aren't done yet!

Once the loaf is completely cool, slice it into 1-inch-thick slices.


Then divide each slice into thirds.


Place the pieces onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.


Bake until they are a little dry and crispy, about 20-30 minutes.

Once they are cool, enjoy! These taste really good (probably because of all the sugar). LBB ate one already and loved it.

You can really do this with any bread. Just slice it already-baked bread and bake at 350 until it has the consistency of biscotti.


What, you didn't know biscotti just means "twice-baked?"

Maybe if I call these "biscotti" instead of "teething biscuits" my baby will become a little foodie.




Or not.

Arlington County Fair

The Arlington County Fair is an annual summer tradition for Mr. Bread Maiden's family. Every year I have known them, they've gone for the great fair food and a little light-hearted competition.


Mr. Bread Maiden's mother, my mother-in-law, aka Slow Learner, has for the past few years submitted various homemade confections like bread and jam, as well as home-grown vegetables to be judged. However, until this year I've been in Williamsburg, or Texas, or Argentina, or just busy, or suffering from terrible morning sickness, all of which prevented me from entering my bread in the competition.

That all changed this year, when I finally decided enough was enough. I was going to get off the sidelines and participate.

I had to strategize.

Over the course of this blog, I've documented many different types of bread. But what was attractive and tasty enough to submit?

I decided that I would submit my tried-and-true breads: my sourdough,


honey whole wheat,


and kugelhopf au lard (bacon bread).






I had the plan of making four loaves of each type of bread, and picking the prettiest loaf to submit. But in hindsight that was just too much work for my first competition.


The way it works is that each class (such as yeast bread, whole wheat bread, specialty bread, etc.) has a first and second prize winner, then the top winner of each category is in the running for a category-level prize, such as reserve champion and champion. Those champions are in the running for a department-level prize, the grand champion and grand reserve champion.

Here's how I did.


I won two first place class ribbons and one second place class ribbon. And the breads that won each ribbon:


I was please at the results. And that second place ribbon? I was happy to relinquish first place to my mother-in-law, Slow Learner! I can attest that her whole wheat was lovely and delicious.

What I really liked about the judging was that they left comments. I will definitely keep those in mind when I enter bread next year.


If you can't read them, from left to right they say:

Sourdough: Nice presentation and texture, light, slightly undercooked?

Kugelhopf au Lard: Interesting Loaf. Done well- creative.

Honey Whole Wheat: Good appearance, aroma, flavor, liked honey-wheat flavor, good texture. Perhaps a little under-cooked (little doughy).

Wait a second.

Hold the phone.

Close-up on the sourdough.


Now, close-up on the comments section.


I was almost reserve champion??



Ah well. Maybe next year.

Whole Wheat Challah

Friends, I'm really excited about this one.

For the past few months, I've been making loaf upon loaf of 1-2-3 sourdough.


It's tasty and extremely convenient. All you do is get the starter going, mix the starter with flour, water and salt, stretch and fold once, shape, and bake. Super easy.

But sometimes you want a bread with more substance. Sometimes you need that nutty whole wheat goodness.


Which (not to sound like an ad) is when I reach for Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads book.


I was interested to learn this week that a bunch of bloggers are going to be working through Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads, baking and posting about each recipe.


In that spirit, I flipped past the multigrain struan, basic whole wheat, transitional wheat, and honey wheat that are favorites in our house. I wanted to try something different.


So when I stumbled upon the whole wheat challah, I figured I would try it out.

I mixed up the biga and soaker the night before.


What makes this bread a challah is the use of one egg and four egg yolks in the soaker!

The next morning I placed the soaker on top of the biga and used my pastry cutter to cut it into small pieces.


then I added the other ingredients.


The great thing about Whole Grain Breads is that it's a book about a single technique. All the recipes follow from that technique. So once you get it, then the recipes get a sort of rhythm.


As I was making this dough, I could anticipate the next step and knew what it was supposed to look like in each stage of the process.


This time, I chopped the dough into three sections after the first rise in anticipation of making a challah braid. It could just as easily be shaped into a boule or baked in a loaf pan.


After the second rise I brushed the loaf with egg wash and put in the oven.


I can't believe I didn't take a picture of the finished product!


But the amazing thing wasn't how it looked.

It sliced like an absolute dream. So soft. And for taste buds that had been getting AP flour loaves with just a touch of whole wheat flour thrown in, the flavor of the whole wheat challah was gloriously dense and satisfying.


I will definitely be making this recipe again. And I think I'll try some of the other recipes in Whole Grain Breads too.

Mother

It is funny that a starter is also called a 'Mother,' isn't it?


Why do you think that is?


Let's try and figure it out, shall we?


Ok, how about this:

Mothers are like starters because they "rise to the occasion!" Blech, moving on.


Mothers are like starters because they provide the building block of the staff of life!


Mothers are like starters because they both materialize from bacteria in the air falling into a culture of flour and water!

Um, seriously?


Mothers are like starters because when you add flour, water, and salt to a Mother and then bake it on high heat it turns into a Baby!


This is starting to get really demented.


Mothers are like starters because when you cut them, they look pretty!


Wow.


Mothers are like starters because you can keep them in the refrigerator indefinitely, then when you need them all you have to do is take them out, feed them, and they're good to go!


I think we're done here.


Let's just say Mothers are like starters because they add a little something special to everything they do.

Happy Mother's Day, everyone!