HCB: Many-Splendored Quick Bread
Sunday, October 17, 2010
See the title up there?
The key word is “quick”.
This bread is super quick, as in get everything ready and then, boom, before you know it it’s in the oven and driving you crazy with heavenly smells.
At least that is what happen when I decided to make it this past Friday.
Yep, you read it right, this past FRIDAY. As in, after a long day at work, I got to baking. Can you tell I had a hard week?
Because I totally did.
Very hard week, in total need of full therapeutic intervention.
So I got home and knew that if I did not turn on the oven and got busy, I was going to have a meltdown.
Baking, my anti-drug.
And this was the perfect prescription.
Rose’s calls this cake, then calls it a bread. It seem that it was having a bit of identity crisis. I was a bit confused as to what type of results I was going to get.
First it had carrots.
I like carrots.
Then zucchinis.
I love zucchini (watch for a quick recipe coming up with the ones that I did not use on this cake-bread).
It has a banana - in this case, baby bananas, so make that 2 bananas and they were not spotted, they were black, so those babies had sweetness in them by 100 percent!
I know, because I ate a third one, while smashing the other two.
Then of course you had to have crunch in there, so Rose included some walnuts - Yum! And some oatmeal - not so Yum, but I figure that having one ingredient that I did not like was not going to ruin the fun party for the other ingredients.
So you start by toasting those walnuts.
Take out a grater and start shredding the carrots and zucchinis.
Then take out a the band-aid box when you carefully grate your finger along the way. (A tip guys, have a box of band-aids in the kitchen at all times - you will need them).
The dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda (Hello mr. baking soda, have not seen you around these parts in a while) get a little mix in, then the oatmeal goes in. I did not have instant, so I use my organic oats and hoped for the best.
Then everything else - the bananas, the oil, the sugar (Muscovado), the eggs and water get a mixing, and once its nice and incorporated, the veggies go in and then you top everything with the flour mixture. Then last but not least the walnuts get incorporated in.
Put all of it in a loaf pan and into the hot oven it goes.
Then sit back and wait the 45 minutes.
I had no need to created the attractive split down the top because the baking gods took care of that and when I took a peek at the 15 minute mark, I could see it forming and knew I was going to be rewarded with a nice split top.
Oh, a warning here. Be prepare for this cake-bread to drive you nuts the last 20 minutes of the baking period. The smells coming out of your oven will perfume your house in the most tantalizing, mouth-watering ways. I read the recipe and was bumped out that we had to let it cool completely before we could take a bite.
But, rules are meant to be broken.
Plus, who was going to tell on us?
Oh, yeah me.
Here.
Opps.
You can keep a secret right? because you totally DID NOT READ THAT.
And, Tom and I, totally did not eat a un-cooled piece of cake-bread after the 30 minute mark.
We could not wait.
And it was totally worth it.
Because, this cake.. oh wait bread, seriously has many splendors.
Disclaimer: No recipes are shared in my Heavenly Cake Baker posts, due to restrictions in sharing the recipes by the publisher of Rose’s Heavenly Cakes. But, you can purchase the book here.
Reader Comments (11)
What a beautiful loaf, Monica. I know exactly what you mean by the heavenly smells. I baked mine in Marie's oven. Yes! Marie and I baked together today. Cool huh?!
Your bread looks so good! I'm looking forward to baking this tomorrow. By the way, I love your pictures. They're always so well staged and such great shots.
I'm just getting ready to start baking this. I hope mine smells as good as your's! Great pictures and write up.
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Hey, first post! :)
Looks great. Can't wait to make it.
You are making me drool over here! Seriously! I can't take the thought of moist and flavorful quick bread/cake. I must go make this ... NOW!
I know what yo mean, I just posted a Maple Apple Pecan quickbread this week too and commented the same thing. I opened the windows and made all my neighbors jeleous! hahha. Out of all the pies, cakes, roasts....I have never had a smell consume my house so wonderfully until I made that bread. Carrot cake is my fave, would it resemble that? I may have to buy the book ;)
Hanaa: You better be posting about you and Marie baking together - jealous over here in Florida. Tom has family in MD.. we need to take a trip.
Andrea: Thank you, I thought it was kind of a quick take, but sometimes the ones you think are not that good, turn out to be the best shoots.
Mendy: Ah ha! I actually wrote the post Friday night - I could not sleep on my end. It was at no way trying to beat Raymond :)
Jodie: Tag me and I will share
Natasha: Ohh I'm going to bookmark that maple apple pecan bread.
Your bread looks great! Mine totally sank! LOL! Actually i didn't think it was so nice smell when it was in the oven either..i dunno why..maybe i just wasn't feel right yesterday. :(
Btw, I just added a couple more pics of "baking w/marie" on my blog :o)
i love the spider mum next to your bread...so pretty! cookie and i tried mine warm too, but didn't like it as much as when it was cool. and nothing wrong with carrot-zucchini-banana-oatmeal-finger quick bread; extra protein!
Yes this bread is splendores for sure (yes I made that word up!). Your pics are beautiful!!! Love the flower addition. I am with you that it is hard to resist not taking a bite right away.