Sunday, September 27, 2009

Beet Bread, the quick kind

Beets are awesome: shredded raw or roasted and warm, I rarely have them around for long enough to do anything with them other than just eating them straight up.  Luckily, I've been busy and not cooking much, so when i got to them this week, my beets were tired, shriveled, and soft. So I decided I would bake with them!


Here's my thought process: zucchini bread is delicious. So why wouldn't beet bread be equally delicious?

I scoured the interweb for some beet quickbread recipes, but to my surprise, could not find any.  So I took a zucchini bread recipe from epicurious and ran with it. I still can't get over how beautifully color-saturated the batter was, and how all that color dissipated after being cooked. But nonetheless, the bread was delicious! (pictured above with a basic cream cheese-lemon spread, the slightest bit sweetened).



Recipe
Adapted from Epicurious.com's Sweet Potato and Zucchini Bread:

  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cups sugar (1.5 would have been better)
  • 3/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 3 cups grated beets (raw) 
  • 1 cup chopped walnuts, toasted

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350.
Mix together all the dry ingredients (flour through salt) in medium bowl; mix together all the wet ingredients (sugar through vanilla) in a large bowl, then add the beets, then the dry ingredients and then the walnuts.
I cooked them in mini loaves, so it only took 40 minutes. If you're making a big loaf, count up to 80 minutes of bake time (or until a toothpick comes out clean).

As noted in the recipe, next time I'll use a bit more sugar (I cut the amount in 1/2 from the recipe I was following) and I think I might try using zucchini along with the beets because i think it would be pretty... And i have to play around with the spices a bit more... any recommendations are welcome!

5 comments:

  1. Oh so many questions come to mind, but first I want to say that bread looks gorgeous. Now, to the questions: One, what kind of pan is that? Two, when you work with beats, how do you avoid them staining everything? Three, how do you like to roast them?

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  2. For my long overdue response:

    1) It's a mini loaf pan! It's great for baked goods distribution to friends...

    2) The quick answer- use the grating feature on a cuisinart. Now, I don't have a cuisinart, so I try to just grate directly into the bowl or something- and then wash my hands thoroughly

    3) Just as with carrot cake, the beets are added to the batter raw!

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  3. Thanks; looks good. I'm gonna bake a batch tomorrow. I was surprised too that not much came up searching for beet quick bread. By the way, the beets lose their bright red color when they interact with baking soda and/or powder. To keep the brightness, I guess you'd have to do a yeasted bread.

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  4. This recipe in the NY Times for Beet Cupcakes might be worth looking at: http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/now-baking-beyond-red-velvet-cake/

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  5. I am late getting to this party, but wanted to weigh in. Because we had an excellent crop of beets in the garden this year, I needed to find ways to cook them. This recipe came up in a search for “beet bread” (I am a big fan of fruit/vegetable quick breads). The first time I made it, I followed the recipe exactly (1.5 c sugar) and baked four small loaves. It was excellent! I made a second batch for my grandchildren taking many liberties - GF flour, 1.5 c sugar, subbed applesauce for part of the oil, used grated beets/zucchini/carrot/green apple and craisins (4 c total), no nuts and baked them in big silicone muffin cups for 45 minutes. Kids loved them! Healthy breakfast food. Thank you for sharing this recipe!

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