Banana Blueberry Breakfast Bread

Banana Blueberry Breakfast Bread. That's a lot of B's. This bread was totally worth the experiment it involved.

I started with my standard breakfast bun recipe which I created with the Stealth Cinnamon Rolls from earlier this week. Since I halved that recipe, I was left with a half a box of yellow cake mix, and I wanted to see if my theory, that this recipe would make a great yeast bread, was a good one. It was. In fact, it made a better loaf bread than it did rolls.

When I made the cinnamon rolls, I didn't trust how "wet" the dough was and I added as much as an additional cup of flour to the "half" recipe, and the rolls, while still high and tasty, were somewhat dry and more bread than pastry-like. This time, I resisted the urge to add more flour and just let the wet dough raise on its own without my interference, and I'm glad I did. It turned out just fine, and was moister than the rolls.

BASIC BREAKFAST BREAD

This recipe is for ONE LOAF -- a half recipe.

1/2 box of yellow cake mix (no pudding in the mix)

1-1/4 cup of warm water

1 package of yeast

3 cups of flour

1/2 teaspoon of salt

Mix all ingredients thoroughly. Allow to double in volume. Punch down, and stir in any mix-ins, or, roll out on a chopping board, layer toppings, and roll up. Add to a buttered loaf pan, allow to double in volume again, and bake for 20 minutes at 375 degrees.

For this variation of the basic bread, I used my bread machine to mix the dough, only. At the "fruit and nut beep" I added 2 big handfuls of Trader Joe's Freeze Dried Blueberries, and 1 big handful of Trader Joe's Freeze Dried Banana Slices, and 1 big handful of chopped walnuts. I crushed more dried blueberries for the top of the loaf (which was really pretty, like painting with water colors). I then took it out of the machine and kneaded and raised it myself, in a loaf pan, before baking.

This particular loaf would have tasted great with a lemon cake mix, but I was using up the 1/2 box left from the cinnamon rolls. I let the loaf raise, baked it off, and sliced. It was just perfect. This bread is not "too too" sweet, it's closer to Hawaiian Sweet Bread. It made EXCELLENT toast -- really superb toast, in fact. 

As pictured, though, I've spread some Lemon Quark on a slice, which was also top notch. Quark is a much lower fat and creamier, lighter version of ricotta or mascarpone.  Many compare quark to cream cheese but quark is much "fluffier."  I get mine from a Farmer's Market in both Vanilla and Lemon flavors. Lemon Quark on Blueberry Banana Bread Toast was really fantastic.  

I buy mine from Spring Hill Cheese Company based in Petaluma, California, which sells it at Farmer's Markets, but it looks like you can get it mail order -- which has to be a little costly because it's perishable -- but if you have to go through life without trying their Vanilla Bean or Lemon Quark, it just may be a sacrifice you have to make.

Stealth Cinnamon Rolls

I'm calling these Stealth Cinnamon Rolls because I'll bet you don't realize you've got every single ingredient for these, in your pantry, most of the time. I saw the recipe and thought "You know, I could make those right now!" and I did. The concept is interesting, and I immediately thought of several variations on the theme, as shown below.

CAKE MIX CINNAMON ROLLS

• 1 box of yellow cake mix (no pudding in the mix)
• 2.5 cups of warm water
• 2 packages of yeast
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 5 cups AP flour

Mix all ingredients thoroughly. Allow to rest and raise, doubling in size, for approximately 1 hour. Roll out, spread thickly with butter, and sprinkle thickly with cinnamon and sugar. Roll up on the long edge, cut into 1 inch spiral rolls, and set in pan, or in muffin pans. Allow to raise a second time, approximately 1 hour. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Ice with glaze of your choice.

I halved this recipe, and found the dough so sticky, I kept adding more flour to get it to come together in a soft ball. As much as a cup more flour than I thought. I think may have lead to the rolls being more bread and less pastry like, but they were still soft and tasty. Next time, I'll trust the sticky dough and leave it alone. Still it was so simple. I added ground vanilla powder to the cinnamon sugar mixture, but not nearly enough butter -- they were cooked perfectly throughout, but I like a bit more moisture in the rolls, so next time I'd use more butter and maybe bake them 5 minutes less. Otherwise, they rose high and light. HALF of this recipe made a full 13x9 pan, so if you used the recipe as written, you'd get a bunch of rolls for sure.

VARIATIONS I'VE CONSIDERED:

Red Velvet Cake Mix + Cream Cheese Filling

Chocolate Cake Mix + Coconut Pecan Nutella Filling

Lemon Cake Mix + Citrus or Coconut Filling, or Blueberry or Poppyseed

Spice Cake Mix + Nut Filling

Carrot Cake Mix + Cream Cheese Filling

White Cake Mix + Almond Extract + Chopped Cherry Filling

Ooh, the possibilities of fast breakfast rolls!

Semolina Rye Muffins

These were a fast, savory muffin. Not too rye tasting -- just like cornbread in texture, but a little more savory from the caraway seeds. Simple and fast, it's a small batch that makes just four muffins for soup or dinner.

1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup rye flour -or- 1/4 cup rye flour and 1/4 cup semolina
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
1/4 cup oil
cornmeal

Mix all gently and just until combined. Pour into four muffin wells which have been sprayed with cooking spray. Dust with cornmeal. Bake at 400 for 15 minutes.

BYOB: Rye Crackers to Restore My Dignity

Zoe and Jeff of Artisan Bread in 5 were kind enough and patient enough to do some research for me, and it appears the reason my ABin5 bread wasn't baking off correctly was the flour. I was using White Lily flour, and the lesson to be learned here is, know your flour. I had no idea it was self rising or had salt and other ingredients in it. I was certain it was unbleached AP, but apparently not! Teaches me for storing it in a big glass canister, with no bag, and assuming I knew what it was.

Jeff suggested I try again with unbleached AP flour, so I'm working on my second tub of Master Dough, with freshly purchased flour that I *know* is unbleached AP, which will be ready tomorrow night for another stab at the ABin5 bread. Pray for me!

In the meantime, I had to restore my dignity and assure myself that I can bake something worthwhile in my oven, and I had a hankering for crackers. I'm still committed to the Bake Your Own Bread movement, and I'm including crackers in that challenge. I buy too many boxes of crackers. I may have three or four kinds at any given time. Time to change that.

I love Rye Crackers so I gave those a whirl for my first attempt at cracker making. These were very simple, very fast, and very tasty -- courtesy of the recipe on the bag of Bob's Red Mill Dark Rye Flour.

The only variation I noticed was that the crackers needed to be baked longer than specified on the bag -- ovens vary and the thickness of your cracker will vary the bake time, so I'd gauge total bake time based on the color of the cracker, and the not the ::ding:: of the timer.

When the cracker is uniformly brown, as shown below, it will be crispy, like a traditional cracker:

Whereas if the cracker is only slightly brown around the edges, as shown below, it will be crisp on the edge, but like a cookie. It was still quite tasty, this Rye Cookie, but do bake accordingly.

RYE CRACKERS

Courtesy of Bob's Red Mill

1/2 cup of Bob's Red Mill Unbleached White Flour

1/2 cup of Bob's Red Mill Dark Rye Flour

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 tablespoon Turbinado Sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons caraway seeds

4 tablespoons margerine (I used Earth Balance)

3 tablespoons milk

Mix together dry ingredients and seeds. Work in margerine until fine crumbs form. Stir in milk and form into a ball. I adjusted with more flour because the dough was too soft. I added a few tablespoons until I could easily roll a very soft ball. Roll out between two sheets of wax paper until 1/8 to 1/15 inch, and cut into desired shapes. I used a pizza wheel. Transfer to an ungreased cookie sheet, and prick all over with a fork. Sprinkle *lightly* with coarse salt (the dough is already salty), and bake 5-6 minutes in a 400 degree hot oven, or, until uniformly brown as shown above. I found I needed 10 minutes to get the deep brown shade I liked best.

Cool and store in an airtight container.

Absolutely delicious.

Barefoot Bloggers: Easy Sticky Buns

This week on Barefoot Bloggers, we made Ina Garten's Easy Sticky Buns, as chosen by Melissa of Made by Melissa. This recipe was so fun, and so easy, and so tasty, I'm surprised it never occurred to me to try it before. This recipe and method is a natural for any kind of breakfast pastry. I can easily see substituting dried cherries and crushed almonds for Cherry Almond Pastry, or perhaps Maple Butter and Pecans. The varieties you can use are numerous.

As with all Ina Garten recipe, butter figures prominently. I didn't follow any of the recommendations for amounts. Because the *base* for this recipe is puff pastry, which by itself is quite fatty enough, I just used the *idea* of her recipe, and adapted accordingly as I went along, using far less butter.

These rolls were superb! I was particularly happy that the butter melded with the dough to create a more traditional feeling dough, rather than a shattery-flakey roll that disentigrates when you bite it. These held together nicely. It would be very easy to make these rolls, cut, and freeze the cut rounds for baking off on rushed mornings.

Butter and brown sugar is combined to make a loose slurry.

A dollop of the sugar butter is placed in the well of a cupcake tin. I only used six wells, because I only used one square sheet of pastry from Trader Joe's. Pecans are sprinkled over the dollops of sugar butter, and the pan is then set aside.

One sheet of puff pastry is spread thinly with melted butter, onto which cinnamon and sugar are sprinkled. I also added a bit more brown sugar, as well as more pecans.

The pastry is rolled up, jelly roll style, to make a log.

Ina's recipe calls for cutting off the ends and discarding them. How silly and wasteful is that? (said in her own style). Puff pastry melts, spreads and puffs, so trimming uneven ends is completely unnecessary. Cut the log into six equal pieces.


Place one roll on each dollop of sugar butter, in the cupcake pan. Bake for 30 minutes until the roll are well browned and caramelized.

Cool for a few minutes, and turn the rolls out onto a sheet pan lined with parchment. Serve while still warm.

Devour!

About this challenge: The Barefoot Bloggers join forces and cook or bake recipes by Barefoot Contessa Ina Garten each month, chosen in order by members, and present them for discussion on two Thursdays each month. Hungry? Please join us at the table!

Go To Recipes: Aunt Elfred's Magical Cornbread

It has been a long journey, for me -- finding a cornbread recipe that meets my rigid demands. It has been a long and hard search, fraught with peril, disappointments, lowered expectations, and more.

I didn't think my demands were that high. I want my corn muffins or bread to be slightly sweet (I do fall on the sweet side of the debate -- but I don't want it to be corn cake). I want it to be grainy, but maintain its integrity when you break it apart. I want the muffin to be crispy and toothsome on the crust, but that crust has to be thin and the inside should be high and fluffy.

I want it to be golden yellow. I don't want it to be wet and dense. I just want my corn muffin to be a big, yellow, grainy cloud.

I've tried many recipes over time, but none met my expectations. I finally gave up making my own, and just relied on ::head lowered:: an instant mix by Marie Callender's. In the restaurant, the bread is light and fluffy, so I began using cans of MC mix a long time ago. This add-water-only recipe was quick and fast. I wouldn't say it was great (it's actually too sweet) but it was the best of the mixes, I thought. Something happened recently, though. I bought a very large bag of the mix from Costco (previously I'd be using the smaller cans of mix from the grocery store) and I've made it several times, including very recently, and each time I found it was heavy, short, and dense. Nothing like I've been used to. I wondered if the mix was just old and ulimately I just assumed the formula had changed or cheapened and it wasn't going to the bread I ever remembered.

Fortunately, within days, I stumbled across a recipe on a blog called LunaCafe (don't get your hopes up -- it isn't a restaurant that I can see, darn it all) for cornbread where the blogger described it perfectly.

::Perk::

Does she understand this delicate balance required between bread and cake, muffin and biscuit? Dare I hope?

I gave LunaCafe's recipe for Aunt Elfred's Magical Cornbread a try, and, it was a complete success. My search is over. I say that with emphasis, so much so, that I've created a category called "Go To Recipes" to house those recipes which end the game for any others.

This recipe has an interesting distinction -- oil and sugar are whisked together into a paste into which eggs, milk and cornmeal are then added.


After the wet ingredients and corn meal are mixed, its added to the dry ingredients...

... and mixed just until it holds together. No longer.

LunaCafe uses a popover pan for high, proud muffins, but I'm quite fond of this squared off muffin pan, because they make perfectly sized muffins which fit in my bento box lunch container, and the shape makes for an interesting sandwich base.

This recipe also serves double duty for me. It ended my search for the perfect recipe, but, it qualifies for the BYOB (Bake Your Own Bread) Challenge I recently joined (more on that in my next post). While not a yeast-raised bread, it neverthless qualifies because it puts me back in the kitchen with a whisk and an array of ingredients which ordinarily would come out of a pre-made pouch of mix. That pouch Marie Callender's mix? Yeah, I threw it out, without one second of angst.

See the recipe here, and trust me on this. You'll love it. I followed it faithfully, but skipped the additions the first time out. Perhaps in the future I may add them (peppers, or onion, or more), but for me, a good corn muffin recipe can stand on its own without embellishment. This passes the test.