Cranberry Buttermilk Quick Bread

Who doesn't love a good loaf? They're so easy and so tasty. I wanted to make something different to eat for breakfast for the week. I had just read a recipe on The Kitchn for buttermilk quick bread that encouraged variation to the recipe and I just happened to have some leftover buttermilk so I basically had to make it.

Share Your Sweets: Breakfast Breads

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve participated in the Share Your Sweets slideshow on Serious Eats. Seeing that the theme for this week was ‘breakfast breads’ I figured I had to participate. As evidenced by the Great Bake Sale of 2011, I love loaves and quick breads. We’re entering into my favourite season, and there’s nothing that says Fall more than pumpkin, so I figured I might as well make a pumpkin loaf to submit for the slideshow.  

Despite how much I love pumpkin, I don’t really have too many pumpkin recipes in my repertoire. I’ve made pumpkin cinnamon rolls and pumpkin crumble bars (both soon to be posted here), and of course I’ve made pumpkin pie (probably my favourite food ever in life), but I didn’t have a recipe for a pumpkin loaf.

I started searching around on the internets and finally came across one from a familiar source. The recipe comes from Lynne Frappier’s blog, The Twisted Chef. Lynne was one of the judges at the infamous Ottawa CupcakeCamp that inspired the whole desire to document my baking adventures. Over the last year, she and I have become Twitter buddies (in my mind anyway) and often discuss baking, cupcakes, and the like. Here’s the thing I love about Twitter – we’ve never actually met in person. Despite having a mutual friend in real life (Hi Amanda!) and spotting her at Montreal CupcakeCamp, we’ve never actually managed to have a face to face conversation even though I feel like we have. The wonders of the internet.

Apologies for the tangent. Lynne’s pumpkin loaf recipe was just what I was looking for. A straightforward recipe (that she’d made many times with great success) that also provided some variations. I decided to go with the chocolate chip. 

This is what happens when I make a recipe I found online and forgot to print. It gets written out in shorthand on the back of a random envelope. This is scaled to half of Lynne's original recipe.

The recipe came together really easily and I loved that I didn’t have to pull out the KitchenAid. Two bowls, a whisk, and a spatula were all I needed. I cut the recipe in half because I only have one 9” loaf pan and I’d already brought a bunch of baking into the office the day before and figured my poor co-workers didn’t need to worry about devouring two huge pumpkin loaves on top of everything else.

I made a couple of small modifications. I used half allspice and half cloves. Instead of a full 1/3 cup of water I used about half water and half maple syrup just because I had it around. I don’t think it made any noticeable difference to the taste so definitely feel free to go along with the original recipe.

Trust me - it tastes better than this picture makes it look

I loved this. It tastes like Fall. It’s super moist. It’s delicious. A few co-workers were unsure about the pumpkin/chocolate combo but they liked it a lot after tasting it. It holds up well too. Today is day three and it’s still delicious. I would most certainly recommend you try this one out.

What is your favourite recipe for Fall?

Lots of Loaves

I've been a bad blogger. I posted last week about the big bake sale I prepped for and pulled off and promised to post more about what I made, and I haven't yet. But here I am! Last week was absolutely insane and I just wasn't able to get it done. Hopefully I didn't keep you waiting too long. 

Let's start off with the loaves. When I decided on this whole bake sale endeavor I was only planning on making cupcakes. Then I remembered this thing was going to start off early in the morning and maybe it would be a good idea to add some sort of baked good that was a little more breakfasty. Hence, the addition of the loaves.

The first recipe that came to mind was another one that I used to make for my roommates in Australia, Burt Wolf's banana bread. My decision was made for me when my coworker, Karen, offered me some bananas from the stash in her freezer. I thought about branching out and trying a new recipe instead of my tried and true. It just felt a little boring. I checked out a bunch of blogs and all of my cookbooks but, after a very thorough search I decided to go with what I knew instead. I probably hadn't made the recipe in at least seven or eight years but a recipe stays the same, right? I doubled the recipe to suit the number of bananas I had and added chocolate chips to half. I'm wild and crazy, I know. Breakfast doesn't have to be totally healthy, right?

Before

After

They look like they turned out pretty well. I have to be honest though, I never actually tried them, so I have absolutely no idea what they tasted like! No complaints from the customers though so I'm hoping for the best.

A couple of days after the banana donation, Karen brought me a big bunch of rhubarb from her garden. We'd been talking about my love of it for weeks and I was pretty excited when it was finally ready to eat. Since I had more ingredients, I decided to make another loaf. Why not? I decided to try out a Canadian Living recipe for rhubarb loaf. Three factors played into that decision - 1. it used buttermilk and I had lots to use up, 2. it didn't call for butter and I was afraid I wasn't going to have enough, and 3. it made two loaves which meant I could take one in to work and share it. 

Before - I forgot to take a picture of the after

These I did taste and they were delicious. Moist and tasty. I will most definitely be using this recipe again. Minimal ingredients for maximum results. The only change I made was to the topping. I threw in some oats and 1/4 cup of flour to make it a little more crunchy and to make it go a little further. 

I think the loaves were a good decision. They were pretty popular and the first things to go. If I ever do this again, I'll be sure to make more!