Greek Celebration Bread

This bread is also known as Artos bread. It was the 2nd bread that was baked for the BBA Challenge. Some who made the bread got really fancy and put dried fruit or nuts in it. Some made theirs into fancy braids. I just stuck with the plain version.

This was really fun to make and I have discovered that I enjoy making bread. I made it last weekend and determined that I should have halved the recipe. This makes a huge loaf of bread. It was monstrous! I put together the poolish the night before as the starter. It is a sweeter bread with a bunch of spices (cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg) and honey. I brushed the top of the bread when it came out of the oven with honey, lemon and sesame seeds.

The bread was delicious. It was soft and worked perfectly for french toast that the boys inhaled. Everyone really liked it.

This weekend I may attempt to make bagels. We'll see?

Anadama Bread

No....I didn't go ahead and join another baking group. Besides, I couldn't if I wanted to because it is already closed. But I had to get in on the action with all these delicious looking breads popping up everywhere.

Working with yeast always intimidates me even though I have been getting better at it over the past year or so. The part that I don't like about making bread is the kneading part. But with my trusty KA mixer and the bread hook I don't really have to worry about kneading a thing.

The first bread that the group made was Anadama Bread. I was intrigued and decided to see if the cookbook was at my library. Low and behold it was there. After looking at the recipe and the ingredients I convinced myself that I could do it. This is a really nice cookbook too! It has lots of intro pages to teach bread bakers. Add to the fact that I have a huge container of cornmeal and molasses left over from various recipes I decided to give it a whirl.


While I made the bread over the course of two days, I told Ben that I felt like I was completing a science experiment. On day 1 you have to mix water and cornmeal and let it soak overnight. On day two, you add the yeast, flour, molasses and other ingredients to get it to rise and eventually bake it. It was quite simple and fun to prepare.

If you are interested...Nicole (who started the Bread Bakers Apprentice Challenge) posted a fantastic step by step instruction guide with the recipe HERE for this bread. Check it out and try it. The bread is really good and tastes great as a sandwich bread because of the softness.

I think that I may even try the a few more challenges before I have to return the book to the library.

Fresh Mango Bread - TWD

This mango bread was chosen by Kelly of Baking with Boys. You can get the recipe and see how Kelly's turned out HERE. Hers looks much better than mine. I thought that it would be a simple recipe, easy ingredients to get together and be similar to banana or strawberry bread that I make. I was wrong. Well, it was simple to make and the ingredients were all in my cupboards (except for the mango) but it was not similar to banana or strawberry bread.

To begin, my mango didn't even come close to being 1 cup of cubed fruit. More like 3/4 cup. I didn't want to go to the grocery store for another mango so I threw in some fresh raspberries and a little bit of sliced cubed bananas. I baked it for the 90 minutes that it called for and then let it cool overnight.

My results:

Maybe I overbaked mine because it was quite dry. I like moist breads and baked goods. Or maybe I should have covered it with a foil tent. Or it could have been better with the right amount of mango and not raspberries or bananas in the mix. Not sure? Whatever it was.....I wasn't very fond of it and won't be making this one again.

Be sure to check out how everyone else's bread turned out HERE.

Next Tuesday: Chipster Topped Brownies.

Black and White Banana Loaf - TWD

This recipe was chosen back in August for the TWD group. The recipe can be found HERE or on page 232 in the cookbook.

My banana bread turned out almost cake-like and very moist. I used semi-sweet chocolate chips. The recipe also called for dark rum, lemon zest and a squirt of fresh lemon. I don't know if I used too big of a squirt of lemon or what. The taste, for me anyway, was OK. I couldn't tell if it was because of the lemon or the rum. Maybe I just don't care for banana bread? The Hubster and kids seemed to like it though and it disappeared rather quickly.

The bread was marbled after I divided the batter in half and mixed the melted semi-sweet chocolate chips in it. It is a very nice looking loaf of bread I will add. I think that I just prefer zucchini or strawberry bread better.

Kugelhopf - TWD

The past 2 chosen recipes for TWD have been things that I have never eaten or heard of, much less able to pronounce. But I guess that is the fun of this. You try new things, cook new things and learn. This week's recipe was chosen by Landa from The All-purpose Girl. If you would like the recipe, you can find it posted HERE on her blog or on pages 61-63 in the cookbook.

I obviously didn't have a kugelhof pan so I bought a silicone bundt pan for this assignment. This recipe was very involved. It took an entire afternoon to get my initial dough to rise, slap down, rise again, slap down, rise again....you get the point. I was shocked when it said to refrigerate it overnight. I was sure that it would kill the yeast. Little did I know! I made some polish doughnuts earlier this year that involved yeast. The results were disastrous the first couple of times. I didn't give up though and required a lot of help from my great aunt. Eventually I figured it out and am happy to say that I succeeded on the first time with this recipe as well.

I used raisins and made the recipe exactly as Dorie called for. I did consider using mini chocolate chips but decided against it at the last minute. I wanted to get rid of some of the raisins in my cupboard.
First I boiled some water to steep my raisins. However, the pictures did not turn out. Next, I used barely warm milk and dissolved the yeast in it. I then added flour and salt to the milk/yeast mixture.

The eggs (2 eggs and 1 yolk) were lightly mixed and added to the dry mixture above.

I added the sugar and 8 tablespoons of soft butter little by little to the batter. It was fun to use my dough hook for my mixer that I rarely get to use. I must have kneaded the batter for a good 10 minutes at least.

The raisins were added to the batter. I let it raise, then slapped it down several times. The process was a long one! It then slept in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning, I set my oven to 200 degrees and popped the dough into my new pan. I let it sit on the stove top for 3+ hours. It rose almost to double in size. Into the oven it went where it cooked for 10 minutes. I tented it with some tin foil and let it cook another 15 minutes.

After it came out of the oven, I used a pastry brush and drenched 4 tablespoons of melted butter on the top. I used a ton of powdered sugar and sprinkled it on top. It looked very nice.

As for the taste....it wasn't bad, just not that great. The cake is very airy and light. It doesn't have much flavor to it though which was disappointing. I did like the raisins and probably would have really liked chocolate chips and vanilla in it. Maybe next time? Probably not! I am proud that I made it and had another victory with yeast, however, I didn't enjoy how much time it took to make.

Thanks Landa for picking the recipe this week. It is fun to try new recipes!

Zucchini Bread

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup butter (2 sticks)
2 cups sugar
3 beaten eggs
3 tsp. vanilla
2 cups grated zucchini (don’t peel)
3 cups flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder

DIRECTIONS:
Blend well but do not beat. Pour into two well greased bread pans. Bake 1 hour at 350 degrees. Or make 1/2 recipe for 1 loaf.

This recipe turned out OK. I like my breads a lot moister. This could be because I only added 2 eggs (one egg had two yolks though?). I messed up because my little guy was throwing a monster fit while I was making it and I wasn’t concentrating. I tried to find a recipe for zucchini bread that had brown sugar as well as white sugar and wasn’t able to come up with one in the short amount of time I had today.

I originally posted this on 7/29/08 on my old blog.