You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Bread’ tag.
St. Patrick’s Day is kind of a big deal in our household. With a last name like Daugherty, its almost mandatory that we celebrate it.
While Matt loves this day in all of its green glory, I personally have never been a fan. Chalk it up to a traumatic pinching experience in pre-school because the green in my barrette wasn’t enough to satisfy the class bully. Is a five year old expected to dress herself for a colored holiday – Mom and Dad, where were you on this one? Needless to say, I’ve never been one to spend all day drinking green beer.
Luckily, our brand of celebration involves less green beer and more corned beef and cabbage. That is enough to make me look forward to the holiday – but only slightly.
We had one new addition to the holiday spread this year – Irish brown soda bread. Named soda bread due to the use of baking soda as a leavening agent instead of yeast, many theories say that the signature cross on the bread was introduced to ward off the devil or, my personal favorite, let the fairies out of the bread. Oh, those Irish and their fairies.
The use of whole wheat flour and brown sugar lends a much deeper flavor than traditional Irish soda bread and fills your kitchen with a wonderful aroma while baking. And because it comes together in about ten minutes, this is a great staple recipe to keep on hand when you want fresh baked bread on a weeknight.
So whether you are out drinking green beer, celebrating with a traditional Irish meal, or NOT pinching those who decide not to wear green…Happy St. Patrick’s Day.
Irish Brown Soda Bread
Adapted from Baking Illustrated
1 3/4 cups lower-protein unbleached all-purpose flour, such as Gold Medal, plus more for work surface
1 1/4 cups whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup plain cake flour
1/2 cup toasted wheat germ (I used raw wheat germ and didn’t notice a difference in flavor)
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, plus 1 tablespoon melted butter for crust
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
Adjust an oven rack to the upper-middle position and preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Whisk together the flours, wheat germ, brown sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt in a large bowl. Cut in the softened butter with a fork or your fingertips, until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Add the buttermilk and stir with a fork until just combined. Turn out onto a floured work surface. Knead just until the dough becomes cohesive and bumpy, about 12 to 14 turns. Make sure not to over-knead it, otherwise the bread will be tough.
Pat the dough into a 6 inch circle, 2 inches high, and place on a greased baking sheet. Score the dough by cutting a cross shape on the top of the loaf.
Bake 45 to 55 minutes, or until the internal temperature reaches 190 degrees. Remove the loaf from the oven and brush the surface with the melted butter. Let cool to room temperature, about 30 to 40 minutes.
Folks, there is a legitimate pumpkin shortage this year. Blame it on the weather, blame it on poor crops. Blame it on the powers that may be if it’ll make you feel better. There is no going around it that the very sanctity of Thanksgivings in America could be threatened this year.
Is that a little extreme? Yeah…ok…probably.
I think I let my fear of not being able to enjoy all things pumpkin this year lead to me yell into the phone “Get two cans!” while poor Matt was doing a quick grocery store run. In my head I knew “Get two cans!” meant “Get two 15 ounce cans!”. I guess our psychic married powers were on the fritz that day because I was greeted by two 30 ounce cans of pumpkin when I got home that night.
I saw this as a challenge. How many recipes could I get out of 60 ounces of pumpkin? Just typing that out I am amazed at how much pumpkin I have gone through in the past few weeks. That is 3 3/4 pounds of pumpkin!
The original intended purpose of the pumpkin was to make some pumpkin bread for two potlucks my mom was going to. I made two loaves of Martha’s pumpkin, sage, and browned-butter quick bread at first, but as the loaves were already assigned to events which I was not attending, I wasn’t able to taste them. And I always hate when that happens. But I wasn’t worried…I still had 46 ounces of pumkin left! So I whipped up another loaf (this is really one of the simplest quick bread recipes) and was able to savor the sweet yet savory combination of the pumpkin and sage. The browned-butter added another dimension to the bread that you wouldn’t necessarily expect from a quick bread. Another win for Martha.
At that point I was down to 38 ounces of pumpkin. My brother made a request for pumpkin whoopies pies, complete with a link the recipe and a snarky remark on my Facebook page about wanting a shout out. But I probably wouldn’t have been attracted to make these on my own so I’m glad he requested them. Thanks baby brother!
The cookie part of the pies was more like a spiced pumpkin cookie cake and the marshmallow cream filling, while alone was too buttery in my opinion, sandwiched in between two pumpkin cookie cakes lend the perfect amount of sweet. These were some darn good whoopie pies.
Three loaves of pupmkin bread and 20 pumpkin whoppie pies. I’m kind of tired just reading that. But what to do with the remaining 23 ounces of pumkin?
The pumpkin whoopie pie recipe can be found here.
Pumpkin, Sage, and Browned-Butter Quick Bread
Adapted from the November 2009 issue of Martha Stewart
This recipe can make one 9 x 5 inch loaf or eight 2 1/2 x 4 inch loaves.
6 ounces unsalted butter
1/4 cup fresh sage, cut into thin strips
1 2/3 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup solid-pack pumpkin (from one 15 ounce can)
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
2 large eggs
Preheat the oven to 350 degress and spray the loaf pan with non-stick spray.
Melt the butter over medium-high heat in a medium saucepan. Add the stips of sage to the melted butter and cook until the butter has turned a golden brown, or 5 to 8 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.
In one bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt.
In another bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, sugar, eggs and browned butter with sage.
Add the flour mixture to the liquid mixture and whisk until combined. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for about one hour, until a tester instered into the center comes out clean.
Let cool in pan for about half and hour and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Bake Your Heart Out 