Carrot-Zucchini Bread with Candied Ginger

Here we are, back in the Pacific Northwest where the nights are blissfully cool and the days sweet and bright (for now at least). After more than a month in the food desert that is the little corner of upstate New York where we have been spending our summer vacations since forever, I was eager to bite into vegetables which didn't look as if they had sprouted, plastic-clad, on a supermarket shelf, in other words, I couldn't wait to go back to our little CSA.
I knew it was too early for tomatoes in our neck of the woods, so I wasn't expecting any (I wasn't disappointed!). I also knew zucchini season was on and I was ready with some recipes but  I wasn't prepared for our basket to be almost completely taken over by the green and yellow stuff!

What you see on the picture above is just a sample of the crop. We had way more than that and I knew I had to go beyond sautéed garlic zucchini, zucchini risotto or courgettes farcies (stuffed zucchini). I needed to make something we could freeze and enjoy later, maybe when summer would be but a memory.

It so happened I had just put away a little bag of candied ginger I had bought in Vermont on my way back from Gérard Rubaud's bakery (I have noticed that ginger helps me stay alert when I have to drive long-distance, maybe because it is so spicy) and I had been wondering what to use it for now that I was back home. 
So when I saw a recipe for a bread using zucchini, carrots and candied ginger in Janet Fletcher's beautifully photographed book, Eating Local, The Cookbook Inspired by American Farmers, I knew I had found what I was looking for.
I adapted the recipe a bit: I replaced all of the all-purpose flour by white whole wheat flour and all of the canola oil (which I didn't have) by extra-light olive oil; I more than halved the sugar (using 150 g instead of a whooping 390 g!) and I didn't use any cinnamon (which I don't much care for). It came out so tasty that even my eleven-month old granddaughter (already a miniature foodie) loved it (despite the heat of the ginger). Try it if you are swimming in zucchini. You won't regret it... 

Ingredients: (for two quick breads)

• 400 g freshly-milled white whole wheat flour (I had white wheat berries I needed to use but store-bought flour would work just fine)
• 3 g ground ginger 
• 5 g baking soda (1.5 tsp)
• 1 (scant) g baking powder (1/4 tsp)
• 4 g sea salt
• 90 g chopped candied ginger
• 3 large eggs
• 200 g extra-light olive oil
• 150 g sugar
• 10 g vanilla extract
• 110 g carrots, scrubbed and grated
• 150 g zucchini, grated (unpeeled)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F/163°C and lightly oil two quick-bread pans (Fletcher says to use 8.5 x 4.5 pans but I only have the two I bought at Ikea and they are 10 x 4.5)
2. Mix together flour, ginger, baking soda and baking powder, sifting if you like (I didn't sift but I whisked). Add salt and candied ginger and whisk
3. In large bowl, whisk eggs until foamy. Whisk in oil, sugar and vanilla. Add carrots and zucchini and whisk again
4. Add dry ingredients to egg mixture and stir with wooden spoon until roughly blended
5. Divide the batter between the two pans
6. Bake about one hour (do the toothpick test to judge doneness)
7. Cool on a rack (but wait 10 minutes before taking the breads out of the pans)
8. Enjoy!

There are many more glorious recipes in Fletcher's book and even though it was recommended to me for the photography (which is by Sara Remington and truly stunning), I know I will refer to it over and over throughout the summer, the fall and into early winter just to figure out what to cook from the CSA or the market. It is organized by veggie or fruit and there are also a poultry, meat and eggs section at the end. It features ten different farms from across the country.
It is a lovely book to own if you have a garden or have access to a farm or farmer's market. I got mine used online and it is stamped "No longer the property of the St. Louis Public Library" in bold red letters. It still bears its Dewey identification number: 641.5 EATING.  Since it was only published in 2010, your local library might also still own it.

Boozy Bunnies

I don't know what's wrong with me but, just like Eve in the Garden of Eden, I can't help it. Ever since my first fermented apple, I have had my head wrapped around the idea of fermenting (that is when I wasn't dreaming up our next ciabatta) and so, just like Eve, I finally I gave in. I bought a bag of California seedless raisins and went with it. I chopped them some, then put them in water. Stirred daily, they macerated for two weeks, bubbling away. I tasted the soaking water periodically but forgot to do it after a while and then I tasted again and, lo and behold, all sugar was gone all of a sudden and I was sipping pure alcohol ! I wasn't sure what would happen next to the mixture if fermentation went on, so I decided to put a stop to it and use the stuff to make bread. To compensate for this reckless use of an inebriating substance, I also decided to go virtuous and incorporate freshly grated carrots as an ingredient (hence the bunny theme). I added some non fermented raisins to give the yeast some sugar to snack on blindly in case it became completely wasted and couldn't fight its way out of the gluten chains. I put in a bit of sugar for the same reason. The sweetener could be skipped but, truly, these buns do not really taste sweet, so unless it is for dietary reasons, it should probably stay in. And I wouldn't use a liquid sweetener such as honey or agave syrup because this is one wet dough already! Now I have to tell you, folks! These bunnies were a hit. They are too boozy for the mouths of babes though and if you eat more than one and hit the road, you may unwittingly be DUI and not pass the breathalyzer test. So watch out and pace yourself. I know it's hard, but they keep and reheat very well, and they can be frozen. It's not as if you had to go through the whole batch in one fell swoop and, anyway, I was just kidding (I think)... Ingredients (for 12 bunnies and a big loaf or for 24 bunnies or 2 big loaves): For the fermented raisins (to be made 2 weeks ahead) 150 g seedless raisins, chopped 300 g water For the levain 340 g mature 100% white starter 340 g water 340 g unbleached all-purpose flour For the final dough 802 g unbleached all-purpose flour 203 g white whole wheat flour 577 g water 540 g levain 440 g carrots, raw, shredded 230 g raisin water 175 g raisins, whole (not fermented) 90 g drained fermented raisins 50 g light brown sugar (optional) 40 g milk 27 g extra-virgin olive oil 24 g salt 6 g instant yeast 1 g diastatic malt powder Method:

1. The afternoon before mixing the dough, mix together all the ingredients for the levain and let the mixture rest at room temperature
2. The morning after, mix the flour, the yeast, the levain and 500 g of the water on low speed in the bowl of the mixer until just incorporated
3. Let rest, covered, for 20 to 30 minutes (autolyse)
4. Add the salt and mix on low speed until the salt is incorporated and, when pulling gently on a piece of dough with wet hands, you can see that the gluten structure has barely started to develop (the mixing time should be kept rather short, especially if using a KitchenAid type mixer. I use a spiral mixer which is very gentle and only has one speed and, after the autolyse, I only need to mix the dough for 3 to 4 minutes)
5. Add the carrots and the raisins
6. Mix the remaining liquid with the olive oil and the milk and slowly, very slowly, dribble it over the dough at it spins (a process known as "double hydration")
7. When all the liquid is incorporated, stop the machine and transfer the dough (it will be almost runny) to an oiled container (oblong shape is best as it makes it possible to fold the dough straight in the container. As indicated in a previous post, I use an Ikea sturdy food container which a snap-on lid)

8. Let it ferment for 2 to 3 hours, with folds every 30 minutes ( the dough was so weak that I gave it 7 folds all together, including one last fold after it had spent 30 minutes in the fridge. It was either that or get ready to drink the bread with a straw later, it was so wet)
The dough looked like batter
9. Then refrigerate for two to three hours
10. Turn the dough out onto a heavily floured work surface and dust it with flour before slicing it in two (lengthwise). Then according to what you want, divide each piece in 12 or not (for want of a sufficient number of half sheet pans to make 24 rolls, I went for 12 rolls and 1 loaf)
    
11. Gently transfer the pieces to parchment paper dusted with semolina flour and flour
12. Dust them with flour again and dimple them with your fingers
13. Then let rise another hour at room temperature in a large clear plastic bag filled with air
14. Pre-heat the oven to 500 F/260 C at least 45 minutes before baking
15. When ready to bake, heavily mist the interior of the oven with water and slide in the loaves (as my oven is tiny, I can only bake one half-sheet pan load at a time). Spray twice more at 2 minute- intervals, then bake for 15 minutes (at home, in my "normal" oven, I then lower the temperature to 450 F/232 C). Rotate the bunnies and bake another 8 minutes
16. Set loaves on a rack to cool and bake the other one(s) the same way.

Besides the boozy kick, these bunnies are flaky, a little bit like croissants on steroids. They are really good.

The big loaf

These Boozy Bunnies are hopping on to Macheesmo ( a beautiful blog which I am very happy to discover) for this week's issue of Yeastspotting. Thank you, Nick, and thank you, Susan!