TWD: Fresh Mango Bread

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie is from Kelly of Baking with the Boys . She chose for us to bake the Fresh Mango Bread from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. The recipe can be found here. I have never been a huge fan of mangoes. Either I get one, and it's not ripe enough and too sour, or it just seems to have an "off" flavor for me. Nevertheless, I still keep tasting them, hoping that one day I will find that "magic" mango that will turn things around for me. So I was excited to try the Fresh Mango Bread. It's a pretty simple recipe, you don't even have to use a mixer, just a whisk and a wooden spoon. The dough is a little thick, but it eventually came together.

I made a few substitutions/alterations to the original recipe.

• I decreased the amount of white sugar from 1 cup to 1/2 cup. It just seemed like too much for me, and it would make the bread too sweet.
• I decreased the amount of ginger from 1 1/2 teaspoons to 1 teaspoon.
• I didn't have any golden raisins so I chopped up 1/2 cup of dried apricots and used them instead.
  
• I didn't use one loaf pan, I used 4 mini-loaf pans.
• I used the leftover lime zest and lime juice and made a glaze with powdered sugar to spread over the bread.
  
• Since I used mini-loaf pans, I decreased the baking time to 40 minutes.
  

The bread was really tasty. The bread was sweet and the apricots went well with the mangos, which have a really nice flavor when baked in the bread. The glaze was a great addition. The tartness of the glaze balanced out the sweetness of the bread. The Black and White Banana Loaf is still my favorite quick bread we have made so far though, but if I had some mangoes on hand, I would definitely make it again. Be sure the check out the Tuesdays with Dorie blogroll to see what other members did with their recipes.

Low-Fat Pumpkin Apple Bread

Fall is my favorite time of year, and I was happy when I saw pumpkin recipes popping up on other blogs, so I decided to try one for myself. Along with pumpkins, apples are another one of my fall favorites, so I decided to make a pumpkin apple bread. I attended an Apple Butter Festival a few weeks ago, where they were making fresh apple butter on site. I purchased some of that apple butter, and I figured it would be a great substitute for the oil that is found in most quick breads. Even better, it makes the bread low-fat!


Low-Fat Pumpkin Apple Bread
-makes 2 9x5 loaves (I made one 9x5 loaf and three mini-loaves)

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup granulated white sugar
• 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup apple butter
• 1 can (15 oz.) pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
• 1/2 cup apple cider or water
• 2 cups apples, diced (I used Honey Crisp apples)

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour your loaf pans.
-In a medium-sized bowl, combine flour, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt.
-In a large mixing bowl, combine white sugar, brown sugar, eggs, apple butter, pumpkin, and water. Mix until just combined.
-Add the flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture and beat until just combined. Make sure not to over mix or the batter will become tough. Gently fold in the apples into the batter and pour into the prepared loaf pans. (If using the two 9x5 loaf pans, divide the batter equally between the two pans. For my loaves, I poured half the batter into the 9x5 loaf pan, and I divided the remaining half equally between the three mini-loaf pans.)
-Bake the 9x5 loaf (or loaves) for about 60 minutes and the mini-loaves for about 40-45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the loaves comes out clean. Let them cool in the pans for 10 minutes on a wire rack, before turning them out onto the wire rack to cool completely.


Notes: This is a really nice low-fat version of a quick bread. It is extremely moist, and not too sweet, you can't even tell that there is hardly any fat in the bread. If you prefer a sweeter bread, you could always add some more sugar. Neither the pumpkin flavor nor the apple butter flavor is too prominent, but the two flavors blend subtly together, and the apples add just the right amount of texture and tartness to the bread. A very simple, mildly spiced bread. A perfect fall treat that isn't too bad for you.

TWD: Black-and-White Banana Loaf

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie selection is from Ashlee of A Year in the Kitchen. She chose for us to bake the Black-and-White Banana Loaf from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. You can find the complete recipe here. The changes I made were omitting the lemon juice, lemon zest, and dark rum, as well as using 2 ripe bananas instead of 1 1/2 bananas called for in the original recipe . Ashlee used 2 oz. of chocolate in her recipe. The original recipe calls for 3 oz. of chocolate, which is what I used.


Notes: This was a good selection for me this week because I always have extra ripe bananas on hand for making bread. If I have extra bananas that I don't eat before they become overripe, I simply pop them in the freezer and thaw just before I am about to use them. I baked my bread for about 1 hour and 30 minutes. I had to cover the bread with foil about an hour and ten minutes into baking because it was starting to turn too brown. This bread was very dense and moist and the chocolate and banana flavor wasn't one I expected to like, but it is really good. I used 70% cacao Godiva chocolate, and it works well. This is definitely one I will make again. It goes perfectly with a cup of coffee, so I know what I am having for breakfast tomorrow!

Lemon Zucchini Bread

Given the abundance of zucchini I picked from my garden this week, I decided to make some zucchini bread for a family gathering. I found this recipe for Lemon Zucchini Bread at Allrecipes. The lemon and zucchini make a really good combination, and it is a nice change from the usual spiced zucchini bread that is so popular. I did make some changes to original recipe. I added more lemon zest and shredded zucchini to the bread and I decreased the amount of sugar. I also made simple glaze of lemon juice and confectioner's sugar to pour over the top of the bread.


Lemon Zucchini Bread
Adapted from Allrecipes.com

Serves 8

Bread:
2 cups shredded zucchini
1/2 cup white sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 Tbsp. lemon zest

Glaze:
-Juice from 1/2 a lemon
-1/2 to 3/4 cup confectioner's sugar


Directions:

-Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease and flour an 8x4 inch loaf pan.
-In a bowl, stir together the zucchini, sugar, egg, and oil. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder; stir in the cinnamon and lemon zest. Stir the flour mixture into the zucchini mixture just until blended. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. (I just mixed this by hand, there was no need to use a mixer.)
-Bake 50 minutes in the preheated oven or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from heat, and cool about 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
-Meanwhile, make the glaze. Combine the lemon juice with the confectioner's sugar and stir until the sugar is dissolved. How much sugar you use depends on how thick you like your glaze. I used about 3/4 of a cup.
-Once the bread has cooled, drizzle the glaze over the bread and enjoy!



Notes: This is a wonderful recipe for zucchini bread. I got compliments from people who claim not to like zucchini bread at all, but they liked this version. I think I will make this many more times. I plan on also trying a healthier version by substituting applesauce for the oil and using whole wheat pastry flour instead of all-purpose flour. I would probably add even more lemon zest next time because I really love the lemon flavor in this bread.