Blueberry-Almond Bread and Apple-Walnut Bread

Yesterday I was having the sort of day that drove me headlong into the kitchen to bake. There are times when the best therapy a girl can get is feeling the heft of a good chopping knife in her hand and seeing a lot of fresh fruit in a glass bowl. We'd been to the Farmers Market and Whole Foods, and so had quite a bit of fruit on hand for my use. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), I had only enough butter for two loaves of bread.

The basic recipe is the same. I will post the ingredients for it and tell you to add 1 cup fresh or frozen/thawed fruit and 1/2 cup nuts (chopped or pieces).

Top: Apple-Walnut Bread.
Bottom: Blueberry-Almond Bread.



Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour (Whole wheat for us.)
• 3/4 cup sugar (If you want to substitute honey, I wholeheartedly recommend this.)
• 1 + 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup of margarine or butter, softened (I go ahead and use frozen, then melt it to liquid in the microwave before adding it. Cuts down on all that stirring.)
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup milk (For this recipe I used Doug's Almond Milk. It gives a bit more flavor than cow milk.)
• Your fruit.
• Your nut choice.
• *For the apple-walnut bread, I also added a shake of cinnamon. I didn't measure. Use your best judgement as to how much spice flavor you prefer.

To prepare:

1. Heat oven to 350F.
2. Grease bottom only of loaf pan, 8x4x2 or 9x5x3, approximately. (I grease the bottom and sides with Earth Balance shortening. Nothing sticks.)
3. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda; stir in the margarine or butter just until your batter is crumbly.
4. Stir in egg, milk.
5. Carefully fold in fruit; stir just until all fruit is covered. Fold in nut pieces.
6. Shake pan to distribute.
7. Bake until wooden pick inserted in the center is clean when removed: 8 inch pan- 75 minutes. 9 inch pan- 55-65 minutes. (Ours was unburnt at 60 minutes.)
8. Remove from oven, let cool in the pan.
9. Slice and serve!

Note: The consistency for this particular quick bread is crumbly, almost "sandy". It falls apart easily.

Servings: One loaf should yield eight slices.
Source: Betty Crocker Cookbook