My first Daring Bakers Challenge!
Yay!
While I post this blog, I still have no idea what the 2 opening and closing lines are to be, but I will prevail. That’s the spirit I live and work with. There’s always a way out, you just need to know how to find it!
I did mention many healthy exam type snacks, this seemed perfect. Sweet, but not quite- bread, but not quite. The main thing this is is Quick Bread.
The Daring Bakers’ February 2012 host was – Lis! Lisa stepped in last minute and challenged us to create a quick bread we could call our own. She supplied us with a base recipe and shared some recipes she loves from various websites and encouraged us to build upon them and create new flavor profiles.
It took all of 5 minutes to mix, two bowls and as soon as it was done, it was ready to eat. As if cakes or other breads aren’t eh?
But this was an excuse to eat, low sugar, low fat and HIGH, High nutritional value. Just what the doctor or the counselor ordered. Perfect as a guilt free sweet snack. Well almost!
Enough raving and praising about the bread. The recipe is a mild moderation of one from Joy of Baking.
reduced the butter, a bit of sugar- actually the original recipe called for brown sugar, we used white. And of course omitted the walnuts. The heat is on in Ranchi, and all the moms and kids avoid nuts like the plague. None of us want to end up as pimply monsters, or suffer a bout of loosies after a bit of an indulgence.
Since friend Kanchan and her kids are nowhere close to the battle of the bulge, I talked her into keeping this for her kids. I’m happy baking as long as I don’t have to walk the miles to walk off the additional calories. So her being my neighbor is a true blessing.
For the
Date and Walnut QUICK Bread…
You need
250 Gms dates
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
250 mils boiling hot water
50 Gms walnuts
2 cups flour
½ cup caster sugar
1 ½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp cinnamon
1 egg beaten
1 tsp vanilla
100 Gms cold butter
The first step, deseed and chop the dates. Place them in a largish bowl and top with the ¼ tsp salt and the bicarbonate of soda.
We only need to wait till this mix cools. About 20- 30 minutes.
Once the dates are cool, pre heat your oven to 180C/ 350F. Before you start, grease and flour your loaf tin. You need a loaf tin; it doesn’t feel like bread if you use a cake tin.
If you are lucky enough to live in a climate that allows you to munch on walnuts even in the summer, go ahead. Toast the walnuts in a pan, or in your pre heating oven, chop them and set them aside to add to the bread.
Now sift together all the dry ingredients. The flour, the baking powder, the sugar, salt and cinnamon that is; into a fairly large bowl. Stir well once.
Into this grate the butter or just cut up into small bits and add in.
With a fork, work the butter in, just like you’d do for scones.
Now the quick bit. Add the dates with all the liquid and the egg to the dry stuff, gently fold it in.
The batter will not be like dough, nor will it be like a cake batter. Somewhere in between. It’s almost like you added too much water to dough by mistake. But for this bread, it’s “A” OK!
Into the oven for anywhere between 50 minutes to a little more than an hour. If you feel that the top of the bread is browning too fast, cover it with some AL Foil and continue to bake till a skewer comes out clean.
Wait 5 minutes and then turn out the bread.
We didn’t wait too long for slicing it.
It smelt divine, from afar.
The pics….and then we added some butter.
Melted fast, the knives are new btw. We were just showing them off.
Baking was fun, but the reactions of her kids were the best!
♥♥♥Rules of the challenge♥♥♥
No yeast
Can’t take more than 1.5 hours to prepare and bake through.
Only loaves or muffins/popovers
♥♥♥Rules of the challenge♥♥♥
No yeast
Can’t take more than 1.5 hours to prepare and bake through.
Only loaves or muffins/popovers
Happy neighbors….so we spread more and more happiness as we go by!
So what are you baking today???
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