Running for the Hills: walnuts

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Decadent Chocolate & Pumpkin Bread

I love the idea for tonight's kitchen experimentation. Partly because it is delicious, and partly because I made up the recipe for chocolate bread on my own. No internet recipe contribution, just my brain and I.

I'm not a fan of cold weather. I would be perfectly happy if it could be 70+, or even 80+ degrees all year round. But that doesn't mean I dislike autumn. The scenery is gorgeous, and the food is pretty good too. My favorite parts of autumn: apple cider and pumpkin everything.

I've been looking forward to pumpkin bread for awhile now, but I didn't just want to make pumpkin bread; I wanted to make something new and exciting. I wanted to make pumpkin bread layered with chocolate bread. In order to do this, I needed to come up with a chocolate bread recipe.

I skimmed through my blog archives, and it appears that I have never actually put my pumpkin bread recipe on here. Tragic. (Of course it's possible it is there and I just didn't find it) But just in case, I'll list it here. And later I will make a post devoted to pumpkin bread.

This evening, I made a batch of pumpkin bread, and also made a bunch of chocolate bread, which I made up on the spot. And then I layered them in a loaf of breakfast bread and a bunch of muffins. Breakfast for the next week is going to be awesome.

Pumpkin Bread Recipe

1 c pumpkin

1 stick butter

2 eggs

3/4 c brown sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 stp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 c whole wheat flour

1 1/4 c flour

chocolate chips

Chocolate Bread Recipe

1 square baking chocolate

1/2 stick butter

1 egg

1/4 c apple cider

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/8 tsp salt

3/8 c brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 c wheat flour

1/2 c flour

walnuts

I've been thinking about this bread for quite a few days now. I bought the canned pumpkin when I went grocery shopping over the weekend, and have been itching to make pumpkin bread ever since. But I didn't want to just make pumpkin bread this time.

A day or two ago, I decided that I wanted to make a layered chocolate/pumpkin bread. But I had no idea how to make a chocolate bread. I looked on google today, but didn't like anything that I saw. So I decided to wing it (my favorite thing to do while playing in the kitchen!). Throughout the day today, various ideas flew through my head. I was thinking about using cocoa powder with a breakfast bread recipe to somehow come up with a chocolate bread that didn't involve yeast (the recipes I found online involved yeast). Then, shortly before I started baking, I remembered that I had some squares of baker's chocolate in my cupboard. And I realized that baker's chocolate would probably produce a much better flavor than cocoa powder.

I was thinking about using 2 squares, but I discovered that I had a box with one square left in it. (I also had an unopened box, but I'll save that for brownies).

I also wanted to use cider somehow, so I threw some cider into the recipe. I actually used my banana bread recipe for the chocolate bread, but substituted a square of baking chocolate and a 1/4 c of cider for the 2 bananas, and added cinnamon.

The Making of the Chocolate & Pumpkin Breads

making both breads at once

adding the apple cider

adding the brown sugar to the pumpkin bread

mmm cinnamon

decadence in the making

I didn't measure the walnuts...but here's what it looked like

before I stirred them in

pumpkin batter, chocolate batter, more pumpkin batter

pumpkin batter, then chocolate batter

Decadent. Delicious.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Yogurt Muffins

Running used to be my only real stress reliever. After a long day at work, no matter how tired I was, all I wanted to do was go pound some pavement. Somehow, this is starting to change. It has something to do with the fact that I stopped running just for fun and fitness and started running to win races. I've done quite a few races in the last 6 months, and it's past time to back off a bit. I don't want to quit running, but I definitely need to get back to running for fun instead of always worrying about making sure I'm going far or fast enough. So, time for a new stress reliever. It seems that playing in the kitchen is taking over that roll in my life. I came home from work today with absolutely no desire to run, and a strong desire to concoct something new, exciting, and delicious in the kitchen. It actually took me another 3 or 4 hrs to get around to figuring out what to bake, but I did get there eventually. And I did take a day off from running. I'm on an every-other-day running schedule for a bit.

If you've been following my blog, you know I'm trying to get rid of some yogurt. I got rid of some of it the other day when I made peach-basil yogurt cake. I got rid of some more of it this evening with these muffins. The flavor of the day: blackberry-pomegranate.