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.

Almond-Orange Honey Cakes

In my family, nothing whispers "I love you" more tenderly on the breakfast table than a plump little honey cake fragrant with anise and ginger, so when I stumbled upon an orange-almond paste "pain d'épice" (literally spice bread) on Alter Gusto, a French blog with a myriad of attractive recipes, I decided to make it for New Year's Day.

There is something inherently happy about spices, don't you think? They are as old as time itself (nothing faddish about them); because of their medicinal value, most of them are considered beneficial; and finally they are wickedly delicious (the expression "to spice up your life" says it all). In other words, they offer the perfect paradigm for a New Year's resolution by making it easier to eat well.

Pain d'épice in France is traditionally made with rye. Carole (Alter Gusto's owner) used chestnut flour (which she had in abundance) because she couldn't find any rye flour. I had wholegrain rye flour and that's what I used (I have yet to find a good chestnut flour in the US). Also traditionally pain d'épice is made without fat or eggs and this one is no exception. Which is a huge plus in my book.

Pain d'épice is customarily sweetened with honey and here a word of caution seems appropriate. According to this article in Food Safety News, some of the honey sold in the US isn't honey at all and many of the big chain stores we'd think we could trust actually peddle junk under the honey label.

Ingredients: (the recipe was slightly modified to take into account the greater absorption capacity of the American flours compared to the French ones. I also added salt).

• 160 g whole grain rye flour
• 80 g unbleached all-purpose flour
• 70 g almond paste (make sure almonds are listed as the first ingredient on the label)
• 10 g baking powder
• 40 g powdered milk (I had none and used whole milk instead to supplement the orange juice)
• 2 untreated oranges
• 160 g honey
• 4.5 g of ground ginger (2 teaspoons)
• 1.2 g ground cardamom (1/2 teaspoon)
• 3 cloves
• .6 g grated nutmeg (1/4 teaspoon)
• 1 pinch of salt
• a handful of roughly chopped almonds (optional)

Method:

1. Wash and dry the oranges. Grate the zest of one of them and set it aside
2. Squeeze the juice out of both oranges. Add enough milk (or water if using powdered milk) to obtain 200 g of liquid
3. In a saucepan, heat the honey, the blend of juice and milk (or water), and all the spices. Mix until honey is well incorporated and the liquid hot. Remove from heat. Let stand for 30 minutes then drain out the spices
4. Pre-heat the oven to 350°F
5. In a food processor or a blender, mix flours, almond paste and orange zest until powdered. Transfer to a bowl. Add powdered milk (if using) and baking powder. Blend well
6. Drain the orange juice infusion. Stir the liquid into the dry ingredients until just well combined. Do not overwork
7. Divide into mini-molds or pour into a bread pan
8. Garnish with chopped or sliced almonds if desired
9. Bake for about 30 minutes (a bit longer if using a single large pan)
10. Cool on a rack.

Happy New Year everyone!


Printable recipe

Rhubarb, Ginger & Honey Muffins

It isn't the season for rhubarb, so why am I talking about these muffins? Well, I found the recipe in a great book I just got in the mail, The BloggerAid Cook Book: Changing the Face of Famine. It isn't a bread book, not even a regular cookbook which I might ordinarily have bought but it is an important book because it helps each of us do something about world hunger. When we buy the book, all the proceeds go to the World Food Program' School Meals Programme, which benefits an average of 22 million hungry children a year. In countries where school attendance is low, the promise of at least one nutritious meal each and every day boosts enrollment and promotes regular attendance and we all know what difference education can make in preserving the world for our own kids and grand-kids. If you have read Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, you have learned this fact first-hand and if you haven't, you are in for an eye-opening experience when you do (that book was one of the best ones I read last summer). In the poorest parts of the world, school feeding programs can double primary school enrollment in one year and among the principal beneficiaries are girls, who otherwise may never be given an opportunity to learn. Four hundred millions of kids (many more than the 22 millions WFP is currently in a position to help) suffer from hunger around the world, so it is tempting to think that our purchase of that one book will not make a difference. But it will. Sometimes pennies are what stand between a child going to bed hungry and a child going to sleep as we want our kids to go to sleep and anyway, if all our purchases combined only helped feed one single child, wouldn't it still be worth it? So please consider purchasing the book, for your relatives, for your friends but most of all for the millions of kids who need help. If you were in their parents' situation, you'd beg us to buy the book for your children's sake. So let's just do it! Because we can... Most of us food bloggers really can. Right? Back to the book. What I love about it - besides the fact that it helps hungry children everywhere - is that it is a compendium of recipes gleaned from fellow bloggers around the world. If I had known about the initiative, I would have gladly participated. But I hadn't and I didn't. The only thing I can do now is let others know about it, so that they can purchase the book too. I won't list the contributors, there are too many and quite a few of them have gorgeous blogs which you'll enjoy discovering. I find moving that so many are from developing countries, especially India. Hunger is in their backyard in a way that it is not here in North America (even though we have our share of poor kids) and they rose to the occasion by bearing testimony to what they see every day of their life and by inviting us to make a difference. Let's do it! This blog is mostly about bread and there aren't a lot of bread recipes in the BloggerAid book but there is another muffin recipe that I will make (avocado corn) and a baked cinnamon apple pancake that sounds really delicious, and then there are recipes for many other dishes which have nothing to do with bread. My copy of the book is full of little flags for recipes I intend to try. The rhubarb, ginger and honey muffins drew my attention because I love ginger with a passion and I am also extremely fond of rhubarb. I have in my freezer some cut up rhubarb from last year's bounty but I also have rhubarb jam which I had made in early summer and that's what I used here. If you don't have access to rhubarb in any shape or form before spring, I would use applesauce, sweetened or not according to taste. The recipe has been contributed to BloggerAid by fellow blogger David Hall from Book the Cook. I adapted it somewhat.

Ingredients (for 6 big muffins or 12 small ones): 100 g rhubarb jam (or applesauce) (David uses fresh rhubarb simmered in honey) 125 g unbleached all-purpose flour 120 g white whole wheat flour 60 g rolled oats 5 g baking soda 25 g crystallized ginger, roughly chopped 200 g plain yogurt (I used wholemilk, not no-fat or low fat) 50 g grapeseed or other neutral oil (David uses melted butter) 35 g liquid honey bran for topping, if desired (I had spelt bran left over from hand-milling some spelt and I used that) Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350ºF/177ºC
2. In a large bowl, sift the flours and baking soda
3. Stir in the oats and ginger
4. In another bowl, mix yogurt, egg, oil and honey
5. Pour into the flour and oat mixture
6. Combine thoroughly. If the mixture looks a little dry, add a little milk until it falls easily from the spoon (I did add some milk)
7. Pour into muffin liners, sprinkle with bran (if using) and bake for 30 to 40 minutes until risen and golden brown. Eat slightly warm.

David says his daughter loves these little muffins. I tried them on some of my youngest grandchildren (age 3 and 4) and they gobbled them up in spite of the (slightly) spicy ginger taste. Since they are nutritious, I was quite happy to see them disappear. These rhubarb, ginger and honey muffins go to Susan, from Wild Yeast for Yeastpotting where I hope they'll convince many more people to buy the book!

Nuke-the-Zuke Quick Bread

I wanted to celebrate World Day 2009 by making a bread that could be mixed, baked and put on the table in less than an hour (with less than 10 minutes of actual busy work). I also wanted to demonstrate that fast food doesn't need to be junk food, so I used 100% whole wheat flour (I chose white whole wheat which is as nutritious as regular whole wheat but much lighter).

Since so many quick recipes rely on meat or meat products, I wanted this bread to be vegetarian (albeit not vegan as I could never ever renounce eggs and cheese). So I chose zucchini, a quick cooking vegetable - which I washed without peeling it, sliced and nuked for 4 minutes in the microwave. To make sure this quick bread was packed with enough protein to make it a main course for a family with teenagers, I used eggs, goat cheese and yogurt (as well as a tiny amount of almond milk) and to make it fun, I spiced it up with some "piment d'Espelette" brought back from France last spring. Paprika - hot or regular - can be used instead. The result is a colorful and flavorful savory bread which can be eaten hot, warm or cold, on its own or accompanied by a bowl of soup or a salad. Excellent at room temperature with a side dish of diced zucchini sauteed in olive oil and splashed with lemon juice!

Bottom of the bread

Ingredients (for 6 servings): 250 g white whole wheat flour (I used Trader Joe's) 100 g fresh goat cheese (from Trader Joe's again), crumbled 125 g plain yogurt (I used sheep milk yogurt from the farmers market but regular yogurt would be fine) 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 200 g zucchini, unpeeled, washed, sliced and steamed for 4 minutes in the microwave 2.5 tsp aluminum-free baking powder 60 g milk (I used almond milk but regular milk would be just fine) 7 g piment d'Espelette (or paprika) pinch of salt

Method:

1. Turn on the oven (350F/180C)
2. In a large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt and piment d'Espelette (or paprika)
3. In a smaller bowl, thoroughly mix (with a fork) goat cheese, yogurt, eggs, olive oil and milk
4. Spray a bread pan with oil
5. Place a handful of zucchini slices in a row on the bottom of the pan (in case you decide to serve the bread upside down)
6. Pour the egg and cheese mixture into the bowl containing the dry ingredients
7. Mix gently until incorporated
8. Add the zucchini
9. Pour the batter into the bread pan and bake for 45 minutes or until a tester or cake knife comes out clean
10. Serve hot, warm or cold. Enjoy!

Nuke-the-Zuke Quick Bread was sent to Zorra for the 2009 bread roundup she is kindly hosting on her beautiful blog.

10-Grain Irish Soda Bread

Back home after more than four weeks ! First things first, I feed the starter which has been shivering in the fridge all that time, then I get to decide what bread to bring to my daughter's house for supper. Since it is already 4 and I am expected at 6, the choices are limited: either I make a quick bread or I go shop in my freezer.

My daughter being a huge fan of Irish soda breads, I decide to go that way but to boost both the flavor and the nutrition by using a specialty flour. I turn to Muffins and Other Morning Bakes, a great little book by Linda Collister, and happen upon a recipe for brown soda bread which calls for multigrain flour. I decide to go for it. The only change I make is to replace the tablespoon of butter listed in the recipe by a tablespoon of roasted hazelnut oil.
The bread turns out scrumptious. While obviously very different from a yeasted or sourdough bread, it holds its own very well at the dinner table and you can't beat the convenience! No leftovers, so I will not find out how it fares for breakfast.
I suspect it would be delicious with marmalade. As Collister suggests, it would also be excellent for brunch with smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. 

Ingredients: 

• 300 g multigrain flour (I used Bob's Red Mill 10-grain flour)
• 100 g unbleached all-purpose flour, sifted
• 6 g sea salt
• 5 g baking soda, sifted
• 1 tbsp hazelnut oil (almond, walnut, corn or canola oil can also be used either for convenience or for a different flavor)
• 290 to 340 g buttermilk (plain yogurt can also be used)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 425 F
2. Put the flours, salt and baking soda in a large bowl
3. Pour in the oil and rub with fingertips until the mixture looks like crumbs
4. Make a well in the center and, using a spatula or a wooden spoon, work in enough buttermilk to make a coarse, stiff dough
5. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead 2-3 times
6. Shape into a round loaf about 7 inches across and 1 1/4 inches thick
7. Put on a baking sheet and dust lightly with flour
8. Score fairly deeply and bake for about 25 to 30 minutes until well risen with a good, browned crust. The bread should sound hollow when tapped underneath. Cool on a wire rack.

Seedy Quick Bread

A friend from France is visiting for a few weeks and I am taking her to some of my favorite haunts. Right now we are in Southwest Florida where we haven't been back since Hurricane Charley devastated it in 2004. Charley changed the landscape radically. It also wreaked havoc with many lives as some of the residents have packed up and gone, leaving behind boarded-up storefronts and empty houses. One can only wonder at their whereabouts and hope that they were able to start over somewhere else.
This sorry state of affairs and the slow pace of the tourists' return haven't helped expand the choices in the bread aisle at the local supermarket. Even the so-called whole wheat bread looks suspiciously pillowy and the list of ingredients is none too encouraging. What's a determined baker to do? Bake of course! And since time was of the essence (breakfast was looming), I decided to make a healthful quick bread.
With the few ziploc bags of seeds I had brought from home as well as the flours and foil pans that could be found at the supermarket, I was all set to go. This seedy loaf was indeed very quickly made. Sourdough, it ain't but, as quick breads go, it is excellent. If more convenient (for instance if no foil pan is to be obtained), it could be made into muffins or scones. With the ingredients listed below, I made one regular pan loaf plus a small round loaf which was the equivalent of four big muffins. We were pretty hungry and, as you can see, breakfast took precedence over picture-taking...

Since even a determined baker doesn't travel with her kitchen scales, I am listing the ingredients by volume instead of weight as I usually do. Sorry about that...
Ingredients:

• 1 cup unbleached all-purpose
• 1 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1 tbsp aluminum-free baking powder
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 1/2 cup of milk
• 1 tbsp olive oil (a more neutral oil might be better but I only had olive oil)
• 2/3 of a tsp of salt
• 1/4 cup poppy seeds
• 1/4 cup rolled oats
• 1/4 cup raw sunflower seeds
• 2 tbsp roasted unsalted pumpkin seeds (for topping)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 425 F/218 C
2. Mix all the dry ingredients (except for the pumpkin seeds)
3. In another bowl, mix the milk, the oil and the egg
4. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the liquid ones
5. Stir until the dry ingredients are just incorporated
6. Spoon into an oiled foil bread pan (since I had too much dough for the pan and the dough was stiff enough to hold by itself, I shape the leftover into a round loaf which I flattened lightly and scored in an X pattern. I placed it in a square foil pan to bake along the loaf)
7. Top with pumpkin seeds
8. Bake for 30 minutes
9. Remove from the pan as soon as possible and set to cool on a rack.

Pear-ginger-barley muffins on a bed of poppy seeds

I saw in a bookstore in Bob's Red Mill Baking Book a recipe for barley, ginger and pear muffins which pretty much had my name on it! I remember it contained butter, sugar and fresh pears. I couldn't wait to try it my way. I did away with the butter and the added sugar and I used dried pears instead of raw ones. I added poppy seeds as I love their crunchiness. The result is exactly what I was looking for, a light slightly spicy muffin with delicious fragrance and taste. Excellent with breakfast but also as an afternoon snack with a cup of tea. These muffins can be eaten as they are but they would be good too with cream cheese or, if you like sweet-and-sour, with a thin slice of Gruyère or Comté. Nutritionally speaking, I like the fact that they are made with close to 60% whole grain flours and that, between the applesauce and the pears, they are loaded with fruit.

Ingredients (for 8 oval muffins and 2 5-inch loaves): 150 g unbleached all-purpose flour 150 g whole wheat pastry flour 50 g barley flour 6 g aluminum-free baking powder (I use Rumsford) 4 g salt 50 g candied ginger, finely chopped 80 g dried pears, chopped the zest of one lemon (Myer if available) 66 g unsweetened applesauce 30 g roasted almond oil or canola or sunflower oil 400 g buttermilk 1 egg poppy seeds

Method:

1. Turn on the oven (375 F/190 C)
2. Mix flours, baking powder, salt, ginger and pears in a large bowl
3. Add the lemon zest and mix again
4. In a smaller bowl, mix the buttermilk, the egg and the oil
5. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ones
6. Mix delicately until the flour is incorporated
7. Prepare muffin or bread molds. If using silicone, no need to oil the molds. If using metal, the molds need to be greased and floured
8. If using muffin molds, pour a scant teaspoon of poppy seeds on the bottom. If using bread molds, reserve the poppy seeds
9. Pour the batter into the molds (up to 2/3 of the height). If using bread molds, scatter poppy seeds on top
10. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick or a blade comes out dry (watch out towards the end as the muffins might be done faster than the loaves)
11. Let cool for 5 minutes on a cooling rack then remove from the molds
12. Let cool completely before savoring.