Dried figs, dates, prunes... they all pretty much gross me out. You wouldn't catch me snacking on them, and I've rarely used them in recipes. In my quest to cook more healthfully and revise recipes to fit into my new lifestyle, I've reluctantly begun to let these ugly little dried fruits make their debut as a sweetener in some of my baking experiments. My first successful attempt:
Whole Wheat- Healthy Banana Bread.
Don't let the 'healthy' reference in the title scare you. It didn't taste like the dry and flavorless bread that you might imagine a healthier banana bread to be. This one is made with whole wheat pastry flour and only 3 Tablespoons of brown sugar. Besides this small amount of sugar, additional sweetness comes from dried dates, dried apricots and bananas. It's important to buy the right apricots... the Turkish sort don't have as much flavor as the California apricots. I always buy the CA kind. And I was happy to find that you don't really taste the dates- they're chopped up and added in for sweetness.
If you cut the loaf into 12 slices, you can package them in zips individually and throw them in the freezer. Each slice is 120 calories (or 3 Weight Watcher's points).
This turned out to be a great, healthy version of banana bread. No white flour, very little sugar, and ZERO added fat made it pretty much guilt-free. Amazingly enough, it was moist. I'm very careful about not overbaking breads because there is nothing worse than dry banana bread. The family gave this one the 'make it again Mom' label, and I will be happy to do so!
Pumpkin Caramel Cheesecake Turtle Bread
Pumpkins are in season and really cheap right now so I have a few of them on hand just waiting to be used. When I recently came across this recipe for a
pumpkin caramel cheesecake bread on
Culinary Concoctions by Peabody I knew exactly what I would be using one of those pumpkins for. How could I resist making this? With pumpkin, caramel and cheesecake all rolled up into one there was no way that I could. I pretty much just used the recipe as it was, though I cut back on some of the sugar and replaced half of the flour with whole wheat flour. One of the things that I really like about quick breads is that they are so easy to make. You pretty much just mix all of the ingredients a
http://world-supper-recipes.blogspot.com/nd then bake it. This quick bread had the added step of mixing the cheesecake filling but it was still really easy to make. While the bread was baking my apartment was filled with an amazing pumpkin and caramel aroma and by the time that it was done I could barley wait for it to cool to try it. The pumpkin caramel cheesecake turtle bread was so good! The cheesecake layer helped keep the bread nice and moist and it went really well in the bread. The caramel and pumpkin flavor combo was simply amazing and of course it never hurts to add chocolate and pecans. I certainly am looking forward to having this for breakfasts this week!
Pumpkin Caramel Cheesecake Turtle Bread
(makes 1 loaf)
Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1 cup
pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup oil
2 large eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
8 ounces cream cheese (room temperature)
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoon golden syrup
2 tablespoon
caramel sauce
1 large egg
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/2 cup
caramel sauce
1/2 cup chocolate sauce
1 cup pecans (toasted and chopped)
Directions:
1. Mix the flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl.
2. Mix the pumpkin, vanilla, oil, eggs and sugars in another bowl.
3. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.
4. Beat the cream cheese, sugar, syrup, caramel, egg and flour in a bowl.
5. Pour half of the pumpkin bread mixture into a loaf pan followed by the caramel cheesecake mixture and the remaining pumpkin bread mixture.
6. Bake in a preheated 350F oven until a toothpick pushed into the center comes out clean, about 60 minutes.
7. Let cool and then pour on the caramel sauce, chocolate sauce and pecans.
Labels:
Bread,
Breakfast,
cake,
Cooking,
Dessert,
Food,
Kitchen,
Quick Bread,
recipe,
Vegetable,
Vegetarian
The farmers market has been overflowing with zucchini lately. They have so much that they are quite literally giving it away! This weekend when I picked up some zucchini at the farmers market they threw in a few extra as I paid. The question was: What was I going to do with all of this unexpected extra zucchini? The first thing that came to mind was a zucchini bread which is always a nice and easy way to use some zucchini. This time however I wanted to try a chocolate version of the zucchini bread. I pretty much just took my standard
zucchini bread recipe and added cocoa powder. I kept the walnuts in the bread and added some chocolate chips for even more chocolaty goodness. The chocolate zucchini bread was as easy to make as mixing the ingredients and baking and it turned out wonderfully. I could not resist slicing the bread and trying a piece before it had cooled down from the oven. The chocolate chips were still melted from baking and the bread was nice and light and moist and good! One of the things that I like most about making quick breads like this is that now I will have quick and easy breakfasts for the rest of the week.
Chocolate Zucchini Bread
(makes 1 loaf)Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups zucchini (grated, squeezed and drained)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
1 egg
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup walnuts (chopped)
1/2 cup chocolate chips
Directions:
1. Mix the zucchini, sugar, oil, yogurt and egg in a bowl.
2. Mix the flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cocoa powder and cinnamon in a bowl.
3. Mix the wet and dry ingredients.
4. Mix in the nuts and chocolate chips.
5. Pour the batter into a greased 5X9 inch loaf pan.
6. Bake in a preheated 350F oven until a toothpick pushed into the center comes out clean, about 50-70 minutes.
