We had these sweet potatoes hanging around, and we were getting tired of roasting them! Even though roasted sweet potatoes are one of our favorite side dishes, we decided this time to make bread. This is an altered recipe of traditional banana bread from La Petite Brioche. You can get crazy with this if you want and put pecans or cranberries in it, but we wanted to keep it simple and let the beauty our favorite superfood shine through. This recipe is so simple!

The only thing we suggest is to roast your potatoes instead of boiling and mashing them. Roasting condenses the sugars and ensures you get ultimate natural sweetness. Give your potatoes a couple pricks with a fork, place them on a baking sheet and roast them for 45 minutes to an hour in a 400 degree oven. Once they cool off a bit the flesh of the potatoes should sink away from the skin and you should be able to peel the skin right off with your fingers. They’ll also be super moist which will lead to a very moist and delicious bread. You can place the roasted potato innards in a bowl and mash them with a fork, or throw them right into your mixer when the recipe calls.

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups mashed sweet potatoes
1/2 cup pecan pieces (optional)
1/4 cup dried cranberries (optional)

Directions: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9×5 loaf pan. In a large bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl or mixer, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir eggs, vanilla, milk and mashed sweet potatoes into the butter and sugar mixture blend well. Stir sweet potato mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan. If desired, top with pecan pieces and dried cranberries. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

]]> http://www.phoodie.info/2012/01/23/snowy-weekend-recipe-sweet-potato-bread/feed/ 0 http://www.phoodie.info/2010/12/04/homemade-english-toasting-bread/ http://www.phoodie.info/2010/12/04/homemade-english-toasting-bread/#comments Sat, 04 Dec 2010 22:12:54 +0000 kwinks http://www.phoodie.info/?p=8422

Tastes like an English Muffin, and has the nooks like one, but it’s in a handy loaf shape instead! This English Toasting Bread stays much fresher than the typical muffins in our opinion. Try this recipe from the one and only King Arthur Flour. Only the best for you, Phoodies! It’s super easy to make. However, ours took 3 times longer to rise than they say it does, so don’t get to worried if yours acts the same. These days we’re scoffing at bread machines!

P.S. Coating your pan with cornmeal is KEY to getting that signature English Muffin feel when it hits your tongue. Don’t just let that part slide!

Are you a good cook, but a not-so-savvy baker? Do you find yourself pulling your hair out, and screaming behind the glass oven door, as you switch the light on in your oven and watch your muffins and cakes rise to nothing but sad-looking bread pudding? Once your precious batter is within the confines of the oven, there’s nothing you can do to remedy this! Don’t worry, you are not alone! This was a very woeful pumpkin walnut bread that I attempted making the other day. I’d like to blame its flatness on the fact that I used fresh pumpkin, which, even after boiling it down, remained very watery. However, I’ve now discovered, thanks to NPR and Shirley Corriher, that it might have been due to too much leavening! Culinary expert and author of “Cookwise,” a practical guide to culinary mysteries and the science of cooking, Shirley Corriher is a food writer and a contributing editor to “Fine Cooking” magazine. She’s extraordinarily funny, in your crazy grandma sort-of way, and a delight to listen to. Check out her hilarious segment on NPR, as she gives advice on everyday kitchen quandaries. On the topic of rising, or in this case non-rising, NPR’s Melissa Block made a tasty but dense zucchini bread.

Well, what do you know! Samesies Melissa!

“Well, you’ve got a couple of options here,” says Corriher. “No. 1: Your baking powder was old and totally gone and inactive.”

“No,” interrupts Block. “It was new!”

“No. 2,” says Corriher, “You had very fresh, very nice baking powder or soda, but the recipe called for too much! Now, when you get too much leavening, the bubbles get big, they bump into each other, they get huge, they float to the top and pop, and there goes your leavening! And your zucchini bread is as heavy as lead.”

“Well, you would think if you’re worried about it not rising, just add more leavening. You’re saying that’s just exactly the wrong thing to do,” says Block

“Oh that’s right! You know, if it’s heavy, you just think… Ah, I just need more baking powder, but this is totally the opposite! You need 1 teaspoon per baking powder per cup of flour in the recipe, or 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda per cup of flour in the recipe. And you will be surprised, if you pull down a good cookbook from your shelf right now, I bet you will find a batch of recipes that are over-leavened. Some of these you’ve baked for years, and they work! But you will be amazed how much lighter they are, if you reduce the leavening!”

Find this and more fun articles featuring Shirley here, such as How To Bake The Perfect Cookie and Talking About Turkey

OK GO has come up with another brilliant video for their song “Last Leaf” – autumn inspired, with stop-motion toast no less! This video was made in part­ner­ship with Sam­sung NX100 iFn, Pro­duced by Shirley Moy­ers, with An­i­ma­tion art by Ge­off Mcfetridge, Cham­pi­on Stu­dio. Apparently all 215 loaves of bread used in the making of this video were past their sell-by date and rescued from the trash.

Not only do they have some killer sandwhiches for breakfast an lunch, which left me in a food coma, but the story behind Rybread is pretty cool too. It all started with Ryan losing his job in the architecture profession… of course. But then realizing that he had no commitments, he and his girlfriend decided to road trip across the country through 20+ states over 7 weeks.  They were inspired so much by the different cuisines they discovered on their journey, that they began to build a menu. Ryan’s dad who was in the food business for years thought his son had lost his mind, but none the less he helped him out.

The results of architect+foodie is always a good one. The atmosphere is pretty awesome here. It’s a bright and sunny breakfast nook really – it’s amazing what they did with a space so small. There’s even a quiet place to eat out back! Just try not tell ALL of your friends (my bad), because we like that it’s not so insane here yet.

Food conspiracy theorists/espionage movie buffs everywhere are probably putting it all together right now: What was Botticella’s price? Or was he a Hostess man-on-the-inside this whole time? Is there a sultry Hostess exec cum spy lady involved (there’s gotta be!)? And what kind of twinkiefied English muffin does Hostess want to make? No nooks and crannies in our Ding Dongs, thanks.

The little bakery that began life with a shoebox for a cash register is celebrating 15 years of awesomeness in Philadelphia. Metropolitan Bakery has released a 15-month calendar with recipes from head baker James Barrett, and memories shared with everyday customers. Beyond their amazing foodstuffs, what sets Barrett and Wendy Smith Born apart from the pack is a connection with the community. Patrons aren’t customers, they’re family, and we’re lucky to be a part of it. They donate to and work closely with local charities, as all proceeds from the calendar are going to Project H.O.M.E..

Wendy and James had a birthday celebration at their 19th St. outpost last night, and the room was filled with family, locals, and the many chefs who purchase baked goods from them daily. Counted among those eateries that table Metro wares are a few Phoodie faves: Lacroix, Rae, White Dog, and Pub and Kitchen.

Besides the Rittenhouse spot, you can visit Metropolitan Bakery in Chestnut Hill, University City, and the Reading Terminal Market. Stop by and wish ‘Happy Birthday’ to some fine folks making your restaurants and neighborhoods much better/tastier places.

Back in June, the folks at Metropolitan Bakery were kind enough to let us see behind the curtain, which led us to love their bread even more than we already did. The Metropolitan gang are born educators, it turns out, and as we went back and looked at this bit of tape recently, we realized that theirs is a great story about Philly’s earliest days of what we’ll call “enlightened locavorism.” Here, Metropolitan co-founder James Barrett talks about how he and Wendy Smith Born hardscrabbled the bakery, and how diet trends always seem to threaten them, but bread, as we all know, is forever.
Previously: Two Things To Remember About Bread, Courtesy Metropolitan Bakery

Recently, the good folks at Metropolitan Bakery were kind enough to let us go where few ever do: Into their bakery, where wonderful and semi-secret things are done every day. We learned a lot — both about breadmaking as well as Metropolitan itself, now in its 15th year — and this is the first of two Metropolitan Bakery segments we’ll be running. In this one, co-founder James Barrett shows us the 20-year-old yeast starter that Metropolitan is still making bread with every day, and also explains a good bit about the baking process.
[Director: Ruth Carpenter/Camera: Caitlin Welge]