a quick bread martha stewart would hate

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So here I am humble blogger and home chef experimenting with a quick bread recipe. Face it, quick bread batter is like basic cookie dough and it depends on what you add to it.

I have been playing with a new recipe. And no, Martha Stewart was not harmed in its creation.

Fall sweet bread – a quick bread in progress

Good for breakfast with apple butter or almond butter.

Makes 1 loaf.

Batter:

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 1/4 cups sugar – I prefer light brown

1 egg

1 cup buttermilk or 1 cup of milk with 4 tablespoons buttermilk powder

2 cups flour – either half whole wheat and half white flour or all whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

small dash salt

Teaspoon each of cinnamon, ground mace, cardamom for **sugar mixture

2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground mace, cardamom, ginger for batter

**Cinnamon sugar mixture:
2/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon cardamom

Plain oatmeal for final top sprinkling

Pre-heat oven

Grease and flour one 9×5 loaf pan.

Cream together butter, 1 cup sugar, and egg. Add milk, flour, spices , and baking soda.

Mix well.

Put 1/3 of batter in greased loaf pan.

Mix in separate bowl the 2/3 cup sugar and cinnamon.

Sprinkle 1/3 of the sugar spice mixture on top of the batter in pan.

Add 1/2 of remaining batter to pan and sprinkle 1/2 the remaining sugar spice mixture. Repeat one last time and give a swirl with a knife. Sprinkle top with a little plain oatmeal.

Bake at 350 degrees in your preheated oven for 45-60 minutes or until toothpick comes clean.

Cool in pan for at least 20 minutes before removing from pan.

The problem I have with this recipe is working out the kinks in baking time. Adding whole wheat flour or baking completely with whole wheat flour changes how it bakes.

The last time I baked this I used ALL whole wheat flour and it took just shy of 60 minutes to bake. And I let it cool in the warm oven with the oven door open for a few minutes. When you use brown sugar and all whole wheat flour this is a pretty heavy and dense, yet moist brown bread.

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baking day: banana bread

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It really felt like fall this morning when I woke up, so I decided today would be a baking day.

I like making quick breads, and here’s a banana bread that’s easy to make and fun to share. It makes one loaf.

Banana Bread
1 tsp mace
1 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tablespoons buttermilk powder
2 eggs
3 mashed bananas
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c chopped pecans or hazelnuts
1 cup raisins
1/2 c unprocessed wheat bran (Millers Bran)
2 cups flour
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup sugar
Additional sugar for dusting

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Oven pre-heated to 350 degrees

Cream butter, sugar, molasses

Add spices

Add eggs and mashed bananas and vanilla

Add salt, buttermilk powder, baking soda

Add flour and bran

Add nuts and raisins

Pour this mixture into a loaf pan that you have greased. My loaf pan is 9 x 5″

After you have poured the batter into the pan and it’s even, dust the top with plain white table sugar or turbinado sugar. It gives this bread and a little sweet crust on top

20130923-132118.jpgBake at 350° for 55 to 60 minutes. When a wooden skewer comes out of the middle pretty much clean your bread is done

This recipe is one I have been making an tweaking for years. The proportions seem to work, although I will tell you this is the first time I’ve written this recipe down. Which is the case for a lot of my recipes- I did not write them down until people asked me to share some of them.

Enjoy!