Babes on A Healthy Roll

In some circles these beautiful round muesli rolls would not be considered healthy, but if you think about bread like brioche or cinnamon rolls with all that butter and not much fiber, these muesli rolls, brought to us by our Kitchen of the Month Baking Soda or Bake My Day, are full of goodness like sunflower seeds and dried fruit and whole wheat flour, dried apricots and flax seed. I skipped the sesame seeds since I'm on a diet that says to avoid them, left out the pumpkin seeds because I forgot to buy them, and skipped the chocolate chips since I really don't enjoy bread and chocolate mixed.

I loved these rolls. They were not too sweet, made excellent toast, were good with cheese, but also fine just plain or with a little butter. Mine were on the large side since I only made 10 with the dough provided, but that meant that one roll was just enough to share with Sweetie.

When I toasted them I actually sliced them into 4 slices since they were pretty round, too. Do try these and become a Buddy by sending an e-mail to Baking Soda by June 29th. Include a photo and your experience with them. I found them very easy to make although I left off the rolled oats topping because in my experience that kind of topping just falls off.

Also, be sure to visit the posts of the rest of the Babes crew. This month we welcome two new Babes, Judy of Judy's Gross Eats and Karen of Karen's Kitchen Stories. Welcome to our crazy group Judy and Karen. You have been devoted Buddies and it will be great baking with you!

Muesli Rolls 

by Dean Brettschneider - Bread makes 15 rolls

450 gr (2.3/4 cups) strong bread flour

50 gr (1/3 cup) wholemeal or whole wheat flour

40 gr (1/2 cup) jumbo rolled oats

8 gr  (2.3/4 tsp) instant dry yeast

10 gr (2 tsp) salt

30 gr (1.1/2 Tbs) treacle or blackstrap molasses

20 gr (1 Tbs honey

20 ml (4 tsp) olive oil

370 ml (1.1/2 cups) water

40 gr (scant 1/2 cup) walnut pieces (chopped small)

30 gr (3 Tbs) linseeds/flaxseeds

20 gr (2.1/4 Tbs) sesame seeds

80 gr (1/2 cup) sunflower seeds

80 gr (2/3 cup) pumpkin seeds

40 gr (1/4 cup) dried apricuts, cut into pieces

80 gr (1/2 cup) small chocolate chips/drops (optional)

100 gr (1 generous cup) jumbo rolled oats to decorate

Place flours, oats, yeast, salt and wet ingredients in a large mixing bowl.  Using a wooden spoon, combine to form a dough.  Tip dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 15 minutes, resting it for 1 minute every 2-3 minutes until dough is smooth and elastic. Check dough throughout kneading for stickiness; add a little more water or flour if necessary to achieve a soft dough that's  not too firm.

Add walnuts, seeds, dried fruit and chocolate(if desired). Knead until well incorporated and combined into dough.  Place dough in  a lightly oiled bowl, cover with clingfilm (plastic wrap) and leave in a warm place for approximately  1 1/2, until dough has doubled in size. Gently knock back dough in bowl by folding it back onto itself several times. Cover again and leave for a further 30 minutes.

Tip dough upside down onto a lightly floured work surface.  Sprinkle flour over top of dough (which was on the bottom of the bowl).  Very carefully turn dough over and gently flatten to 2cm (3/4 in) thick.  Using a dough scarper or large chef's knife, cut dough into 7cm (2 3/4in) squares.  Using a pastry brush, brush the tops with water, Sprinkle entire surface of each roll with rolled oats, and pat down gently to stick them on.

Line a baking tray (cookie sheet) with baking (parchment) paper.  Place rolls onto lined tray (sheet), leaving a 2-3cm (3/4-11/4in) gap between each roll.  Cover with clingfilm (plastic wrap) and leave to prove for 30-45 minutes, depending on room temperature.

Place rolls on baking tray (cookie sheet) in a preheated 230C/450F/Gas 8 oven, apply steam and quickly close oven door.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, turning tray around halfway through baking if needed Remove rolls from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

The Bread Baking Babes are:

• Bake My Day – Karen
• blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth
• Bread Experience – Cathy
• Feeding my Enthusiasms – Pat/Elle
• girlichef – Heather
• Life’s a Feast – Jamie
• Lucullian Delights – Ilva
• My Diverse Kitchen – Aparna
• My Kitchen In Half Cups – Tanna
• Notitie Van Lien – Lien
• Thyme for Cooking – Katie (Bitchin’ Bread Baking Babe Bibliothécaire)
• Karen’s Kitchen Stories – Karen
• Judy’s Gross Eats – Judy

Zucchini Muesli Bread

In my twenties it seemed like zucchini bread showed up at every bake sale or pot luck during the summer. Usually they were moist and sweet, very spiced and heavy quick breads.

Recently at the Bread Baker's Dog, I posted a yeasted zucchini bread that was savory instead of sweet, rich with the Mediterranean flavors of Parmesan cheese, pine nuts and basil.


The zucchini keeps on coming, even from the lazy woman's planting that I made in desperation the day before my vacation.

I still had zucchini and cucumber seedlings and not enough time to plant them 'properly', so I took a 2 cubic foot bag of potting soil, laid it flat...well it sloped downhill a bit, but that is OK for drainage...and cut holes in the plastic bag. Into each hole I put a seedling. Since there was some fertilizer in the potting soil mix, I figured that with regular watering the plants would make it for three weeks and then I could transplant them to pots. Imagine my delight to find that they were quite happy in their bag.

The zucchini I used today for this bread was from that group of plants and it was fully a foot long and shredded into more than the required two cups! I've also started harvesting lemon cucumbers from the bag plantings. It is something that you might want to try, especially if you don't have a place to garden, but have a sunny spot to place a bag of soil. The important thing is to make sure to water it regularly and not let the soil dry out.

Today I wanted to make the quick bread version, so I started looking through my cookbooks. I found that more recently published books didn't have a sweet quick bread version. When I looked in older cookbooks I found out why. The traditional recipe apparently used a full cup of oil for each two cups of zucchini...that's a lot of oil.

Lately I've been thinking about making a muesli bread, too. Muesli is a combination of whole grain flakes, nuts and dried fruits. We ate a lot of it while in Ireland. It was available each morning as part of the full Irish breakfast. We haven't found a ready made variety here that is as good as what we had in Ireland, but I'm thinking of making my own. My favorite store-bought, the kind from Bob's Red Mill, has red wheat, rye, barley and oat flakes and some almonds and date clusters.

It occurred to me that I could combine zucchini and home made muesli in a quick bread, use less oil, and see what happened. As it turned out, trying to figure out the proportions from scratch takes a lot of time.

I kept the two cups of shredded zucchini and used a clean flour sack towel to squeeze out the excess liquid.

Then I took some of a combination of whole grain flakes that I found at a local store and added some buttermilk and regular milk (because I ran out of buttermilk) and let that combination sit for half an hour while I figured out the rest. That allowed the grains to soften a bit as they absorbed some of the liquids.

For the rest of the muesli, I took a handful of whole natural almonds and chopped them roughly, added some golden raisins (because I love them), some dried cranberries (for color and sweetness), some chopped dates (contrast and more sweetness) and some extra old-fashioned oats for some texture.

The most difficult part was to figure out how much flour would be needed. I started with 1 1/2 cups which was mixed with the leaveners and salt and cinnamon, but added another 1/2 cup before adding the almond-date-oats-raisin-cranberry mixture. Still, it was a successful experiment...the bread is delicious, moist, with lots of flavor and texture from the zucchini and muesli additions, plus a hint of cinnamon.

Now that I have the recipe figured out, I suspect I'll be making a lot of this bread over the summer.

Zucchini Muesli Bread

½ cup mixed-grain flakes (mine has red wheat, barley, rye and oat flakes)
1/3 cup buttermilk
½ cup milk
2 large egg
1/3 cup vegetable oil (I used safflower)
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cup shredded zucchini, extra moisture squeezed out
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ cup old-fashioned rolled oats
½ cup natural almonds, chopped
½ cup pitted dates, chopped
¼ cup dried cranberries
¼ cup golden raisins

In a small bowl, combine the multi-grain flakes (rolled whole grains) and the buttermilk and milk. Let sit for at least ½ hour.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9 x 5 inch bread pan.

In a large mixing bowl combine the eggs, vegetable oil, brown sugar and vanilla. Let sit 10 minutes.

Add the zucchini and the mixed-grain and milk mixture and mix to combine.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon into a bowl or onto a sheet of waxed paper. Set aside.

On a sheet of waxed paper, combine the rolled oats, chopped almonds, chopped dates, dried cranberries and golden raisins. Set aside.

On low speed, or with just enough strokes to mix, combine the flour mixture with the zucchini mixture. Once just combined, add the almond-raisin-cranberry-date-oat mixture and stir just until blended.

Pour batter into the prepared pan, smooth the top and place in the preheat oven. Bake approximately an hour, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool on a rack for 15 minutes, and then run a knife around the edges to loosen the loaf and turn out of the pan to cool completely.

Best cut when fully cooled. Makes one loaf.