Teff

I hadn't heard of teff until I took a cooking class at Kripalu a few years ago.  But like quinoa, teff is making a resurgence and can now be found with other baking supplies at Whole Foods. (It's the one that looks suspiciously like hot chocolate mix - probably shouldn't mix those up.)  For those who haven't yet experienced this unique ingredient, teff is a grain native to Ethiopia that has a really interesting nutty, even somewhat chocolaty taste (in my opinion).  It's rather dense, like whole wheat flour, so baking with it requires lots of leavener, and it has a fine, grainy texture in most finished products.

Below is a recipe for teff banana pancakes from my favorite source for breakfast recipes.  I finally found the magic amount of heat to use on my pancakes so that they didn't have a black sear on the outside like they so often do - medium heat, about 2 minutes/side.

Teff banana pancakes
From: Going Wild in the Kitchen by Leslie Cerrier

This recipe yielded 12 pancakes for me (about 2-3 inches across).

2 tbsp flax seeds
2 ripe bananas
1 1/2 cups milk
1 tbsp vanilla
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups teff flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt

Grind the flax seeds in a coffee grinder or blender.  Combine in a blender or food processer everything from the flax seeds to the oil and blend well.  In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients, then add the mixed wet ingredients.  Make pancakes as usual and enjoy!

Sugar and Spice

Last week I got a new cookbook! (Thanks Mom!) But not just any cookbook, a bread book.  Since we always have ripe bananas in our house, I decided to try making their banana sandwich bread, a nice departure from our usual banana quick bread.  But, I should have known that when something calls for the zest of not 1, but 2 oranges, you're not going to be tasting anything else...  Still, the bread had a wonderful texture and their method of making it is something I'd never tried before (the sponge method?) so I decided it was blog-worthy.  I can't wait to try some of the other tasty recipes (accompanied by equally tasty-looking pictures!) this book has to offer.

Also featured in this post: Gingersnaps!  I made these a while ago when my dad came to visit - my dad is the ultimate chocoholic but can no longer have chocolate.  I was looking for something that 1) did not have chocolate (I have very few recipes that meet this criteria to begin with...); and 2) could be made from ingredients I already had in my kitchen.  And as usual, when I'm trying to meet criterion #2, the Joy of Cooking made itself useful.  Though these gingersnaps were not actually crunchy, they had a great taste and went fast!

Gingersnaps
From: The Joy of Cooking
Grade: A-  Pretty easy to whip up, but could not get them crunchy.  Still, great taste!

This is the original recipe and makes 6 dozen cookies.

3 3/4 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
4 tsp ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks butter
1 2/3 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup dark molasses
2 tsp fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp orange or lemon zest

Combine dry ingredients.  Beat together sugar and butter, then add remaining wet ingredients.  Stir in the flour intil smooth.  Roll small 1" dough balls and place onto a greased cookie sheet.  Flatten the tops slightly.  Bake at 350F for 10-13 minutes.


Whole Wheat Orange Spice Bread (or "lightly spiced" Banana Sandwich Bread)
From: The Tassajara Bread Book
Grade: A- if you want an orange bread, C+ if you were hoping to taste any banana...  But a wonderful texture!


Caution: This recipe makes 2 loaves, something I always forget to check when making bread and before I know it, I'm elbow deep in way too much dough to handle.  So, I'd highly recommend cutting this in half.  Also, I have an extra loaf of this in my freezer if you want to save yourself the trouble...

Monday brunch

Joanna joined us for brunch today, and despite being snowed in this morning and unable to go to the store, we still managed to put out a pretty good spread. 

The star of the brunch was my cinnamon swirl bread, with my dry and much less successful banana bread hiding behind it.  (For those who love my usual banana bread, this was a new recipe, so I'll put up both but recommend that you stick with the Joy of Cooking recipe.  Lesson: whole wheat flour is not the same as whole wheat pastry flour.)  You can't see it in the photo, but the steam was actually still rising out of the cinnamon bread!  I'm looking forward to cinnamon bread toast for breakfast this week.

I find that a lot of people are intimidated by making bread, and I definitely was myself when I started a few years ago.  You need two things to make bread properly: 1) time, and 2) a good set of hands.  You need to let this bread rise for a total of 3 hours, and you need your hands to get used to feeling when the dough has been kneaded sufficiently.  But after a few loaves, you will definitely get the hang of it!  And don't ask me how to adapt this for a bread machine - I don't own one and never will.

Cinnamon swirl bread
Adapted from: The Joy of Cooking
      Grade: A- (time consuming to make, as most yeast breads are, but much simpler than many and extremely soft and tasty)
The original recipe is for a cinnamon raisin bread, but since I never stock raisins (Rob is not a fan...) I just left them out.  If you'd like to make this with raisins, place 1/2 cup raisins in a asauce pan and cover with cold water - bring to a boil, then drain and cool and apply them with the first application of cinnamon sugar.

This is based from a milk bread dough, which is very versatile and can be used to make a variety of different things, such as biscuits, sandwich bread, or in this case a sweet treat!