A Sweet Tea Bread

It took me a long time to come around to being a coffee drinker because I started out as a tea drinker. When I was a child I remember I was given a very milky, weak tea when I was sick. Later, one of the highlights of my day was the time spent after school sitting at the dining room table enjoying a cup of tea and some conversation with my Mom. She would stop her busy schedule most days in the afternoon for 'tea time' and it was a great opportunity to discuss anything from problems at school to events of the world. She and I were both very interested in politics, so often the conversation turned to that topic. I'm grateful that she isn't alive in 2017 because I believe that the upcoming inauguration would be a trial for her. She was a supporter of equality for minorities and both genders most of her life and she was not a hater, although she wasn't a fan of the last President Bush, either.

In college I started to have coffee some of the time, although tea was still my favorite hot drink. Once I started working it was far easier to drink coffee when I was on the go, so tea became a drink for the afternoon only.

Lately I have discovered that coffee and my body don't get along, so tea is my hot beverage for the whole day. I have all kinds...black, green, red, caffeinated, decaf, fruit infusions and so on. My favorites are English or Irish Breakfast, Earl Gray, and Peppermint, plus a ginger/honey combo from China that is both sweet and hot.

Recently I baked a lovely quick bread that has tea as one of its ingredients. You soak some dried fruit overnight in the tea which really gets the whole loaf infused with the tea flavor. For that I used English Breakfast since it is hearty and the flavor doesn't get lost in the other flavors of the bread.

You can mix up the dried fruits you use, but be sure to include some candied citrus peel for the special tang that gives. I baked this recipe as four small loaves instead of one big one and just reduced the baking time (45 minutes instead of 1 1/2 hours). Either way, this is a lovely bread to have with a cup of tea!

Tea Brack
one medium loaf or 4 small loaves
from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads

1 cup white raisins (I used golden raisins)
3/4 cup dried currants (didn't have enough, so added 1/2 cup dried cherries and 2 tablespoons candied ginger)
1/4 cup chopped candied peel (I used half lemon and half orange peels)
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 1/2 cups cold tea (I used English Breakfast)
1/4 cup rum or brandy (I used Irish Whiskey)(optional but nice)
2 cups bread or all-purpose flour (I used 1/2 all-purpose, unbleached and 1/2 Irish whole meal flour from King Arthur Flour)
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon EACH ground cinnamon, grated nutmeg and salt
1 egg, room temperature, well beaten

Grease and line sides and bottom with buttered waxed paper - 1 medium (8" x 4") loaf pan. Leave the paper ends sticking out about 1/2 inch so the loaf can be pulled from the pan. Set aside. (You can prepare the pan the next day after the fruit is marinated.)

In a bowl combine the raisins, currants, candied peel, brown sugar and cold tea. Add a dollop of brandy, rum or whiskey to give it a secret goodness, although this is optional. Cover tightly with plastic wrap so that no moisture escapes and let marinate overnight.

The next day...Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. while making the batter.

In a clean bowl mix together, with your clean fingers, or a spoon, the dry ingredients: 2 cups flour, 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon each cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Pour the dry ingredients into the marinated fruit mixture, stir well to combine, and add the egg. The mixture will be on the thin side. Pour or spoon the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake the loaf slowly in the 325 degree oven until a toothpick comes out dry when pierced into the load, about 1 1/2 hours. If using a convection oven, reduce heat; bake at 300 degrees F.

Remove the bread from the oven. Place on a wire rack about 5 minutes to cool, then remove the bread from the pan, discard the paper, and let cool completely before slicing.

Serve with butter or cream cheese...and tea!

I suspect that you could marinate everything and keep it in the refrigerator (for at least a few weeks) until you wanted to make the Tea Brack. That would mean that it would all be done in less than two hours. That's still not as fast as Irish Soda Bread for unexpected guests, but pretty fast for expected guests and family!

Pumpkin Zing

The yellow and brown leaves were swirling around this week in the brisk breezes. Autumn is such a great time of year. Pumpkins are showing up at the market and in front of the hardware store, ready to add their cheery color and wicked smiles once they become jack o'lanterns. Although this is the season of the year when things are ending in nature, it is often a time of new beginnings for me.

A couple of days ago a new stove and new dishwasher were installed. Any renovation of the kitchen that involves new cabinets or flooring or lighting or counter tops or new doorways or fewer wall will have to wait a while. The entry project has taken far longer than expected and Sweetie and I need a break from the stresses of construction. A new stove and dishwasher, however, are fine because they were installed in the very same places that the appliances they replaced lived. They are both stainless steel and quite beautiful in a way.

I decided that the best way to try out the new oven was to make a quick bread. Very little time is wasted if the loaf doesn't turn out well. We had some super ripe bananas, so banana bread went in first. Then I gave in to the rush of fall feelings and made pumpkin bread. Both were done in a much shorter time than in the recipe, probably because this oven has a convection feature. Unfortunately both were a little burnt on the bottom, too. I think I'll need to bake things on a rack that is higher in the oven.

Have you ever wanted to combine the flavors of pumpkin bread with the zing of a triple ginger molasses cookie? That's what I did and it is an exciting bread. The texture is moist from the pumpkin and the color is a nice deep orange, but the best part is the flavor. Pumpkin is the first note, but it is followed by spices of cinnamon and cloves and a burst of ginger. I sprinkled some sanding sugar on top as a reference to the sugar that the cookies are rolled in and it give a bit of a crunch which is really nice.

The banana bread was my usual one, so no recipe today, but I do want to give you the pumpkin bread recipe. It's a keeper.

Super Ginger Pumpkin Bread
a very gingery, molasses-y, nutty, pumpkin-y sweet bread

 2 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
2 tablespoons chopped crystallized ginger
1 teaspoon finely grated peeled fresh ginger
1 cup canned solid pack pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 cup brown sugar, packed
¼ cup milk

¼ light (mild) molasses
2 eggs
1 cup chopped walnuts
Sanding sugar topping

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9x5x3 loaf pan.

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl (both flours, soda and powder, spices).

Put the crystallized ginger, fresh ginger, pumpkin, brown sugar, milk, molasses and eggs in a mixing bowl and mix until well blended.

Add the dry ingredients and begin to combine. Add the nuts and mix just until all are well blended.

Pour into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Top with sanding sugar, sprinkled on thickly. Bake in preheated oven 45 to 55 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool in pan five minutes, then turn out of pan and cool on a cooling rack.

Celebrating Another Year

Due to various things going on in my life...particularly work issues but also house projects, family feuds, Sweetie's shoulder issues, my knee injury, and on and on...this year has not been stellar in the blogging department, but another year of this blog has indeed passed. The challenge has been find in the time to post, but also finding the focus to remember to photograph food. I do prefer posts with photos of the dishes I'm talking about, don't you? Thanks to you, dear reader, the blog continues to pull me toward the computer so that I can share what I've made with you. Sometimes I wish I had a secret tunnel to your house (a fantasy I first read about on the Bread Baking Babes site) so that I could give you some of this freshly cooked or baked yumminess!

Now that some of last year's issues have been resolved I'm hoping to do a few more posts each month. I'm also dedicated to slowly but surely reducing the clutter and possessions in the house...and painting the walls in rooms that really need it, like my bedroom and the guest bedroom and parts of the living room, too. We'll see how far I get by Christmas!

To start off Feeding My Enthusiasms newest year let's turn to the King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion cookbook. I've become a big fan of King Arthur's products even though they don't send me any free samples or anything. Their specialty flours are wonderful. I use two of them this time. One flour is the Irish Whole Meal wheat flour which has a great texture with bits of the outer layer of the wheat berry that get lost when flour is processed a lot. The second one is the Ancient Grains flour which includes flours like amaranth...how cool is that? It add some subtle flavors that you don't get with plain flour.

So what are we baking today? A baked treat with nuts and chocolate chips. A seasonal favorite that can be baked year 'round because it uses canned pumpkin. I know that it is almost impossible to find canned pumpkin in some areas outside of the U.S., but you should be able to use cooked butternut squash...just be sure to run it through a food mill or process it in a food processor to make the cooked squash nice and smooth. If it's very watery, you may want to drain it in some cheesecloth. Canned pumpkin is pretty solid with minimal water.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread...doesn't that sound wonderful? This recipe is so easy and it make TWO large loaves. I froze the second one for future tea parties or when I need something sweet and baked but don't have time to bake (or I have too much paint on my hands...and face...but still want something to go with a cup of pick-me-up tea. I recommend using the butter/margarine combination. The sugar creams so much better with it and the texture of the loaf is a bit lighter, too.

Not a loaf bread kinda person? This batter would also make quite a few delicious muffins...just be sure to bake for a much shorter time.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread
from the King Arthur Baker's Companion Cookbook
Makes two loaves

2/3 cup shortening or 1 cup vegetable oil (I used one stick of butter and one stick of margarine, both partially melted in the microwave when I found that my vegetable oil had gone rancid. I rarely have shortening in the house)
2 2/3 cups sugar
4 large eggs
2 cups (or one 15-oz can) pumpkin - NOT pumpkin pie filling
2/3 cup water
3 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (I used 2 1/2 cups unbleached, 1/2 cup whole meal wheat (Irish whole meal flour from King Arthur, and 1/2 cup ancient grains flour mix from King Arthur.)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped pecans
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl, cream together the shortening, or oil or butter or margarine and the sugar. Beat in the eggs, pumpkin, and water. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, and vanilla, stirring to blend, then mix in the nuts and chips.

Spoon the batter into two lightly greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pans. Bake the bread for 1 hour, or until a cake tester inserted in the center of one loaf come out clean. Remove bread from the oven. Cool it on a rack. Turn out of the pans and wrap completely cooled loaves well in plastic wrap and store it overnight before serving. (I ate some the same day and a slice the next day...didn't seem to be any different, so I vote for eating some while still slightly warm for that melted chocolate chip delight sensation.)