After a morning of grading, I decided to reward myself with more baking. As you will see on this blog, I’m not really much of a baker. Oh, I love to TRY to bake, but more often than not, my measurements are wrong, I burn the (insert baked good here), or something is just plain off (taste, texture, etc.). I WANT to be a good baker! Really I do! But I think there’s something about the specificity of it that just doesn’t match my cooking personality. I’m kind of a “throw in whatever, a little of this, a little of that” kind of cook, which works fine (usually) for cooking, but baking? Not so much.
But, as I said, I am all for trying to become a better baker. So, with a little extra time on my hands this morning, I decided to tackle the oven with another quick bread.
One of my bad habits is buying a lot of food…right before I leave town. I don’t know why I do this. I KNOW I’m leaving. I KNOW I won’t be able to eat everything, and I’ll end up having wasted money. Still, something in me just insists. This is how I ended up carting six pomegranates home from the grocery store on Saturday, even though we’re leaving town on Thursday.
What to do, what to do?
Pomegranate bread!
When Tina mentioned pomegranate bread in her National Homemade Bread Day post, my mouth watered. I love those little jewels! I squeal, loudly, when I see them in the grocery store for the first time each season.
As with the pumpkin bread I baked yesterday, I looked up about four different recipes, mixed them all together and came up with a pomegranate bread love baby that contained three of my favorite things: pomegranates, bananas, and coconut. But no raindrops on roses. Or whiskers on kittens.
As per usual, I made some healthy substitutions as well. I subbed a cup of whole wheat flour for one of the cups of regular flour. I also cut back on the oil and sugar. Here’s the final recipe:
Pomegranate Banana Coconut Bread
Dry Ingredients
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
Wet Ingredients
2 bananas, mashed
1 egg
1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk (I use Almond Breeze)
1/4 cup safflower oil
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. almond extract
Other Ingredients
2 tbsp. sweetened coconut flakes
1 cup pomegranate arils
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Sift together dry ingredients. Mix together wet ingredients, and slowly incoporate into the dry ingredients. Dough may be slightly dry; if so, add a bit more almond milk. Add coconut and pomegranate, and pour into a regular size loaf pan.
Bake for 45-60 minutes, or until the top is golden and an inserted wooden skewer comes out clean.
Pics:
But how did it taste?
Delicious!!!
Actually, I think that this was more of a success than the pumpkin bread. The crunchy, tart pomegranate arils really contrast nicely with the spongy sweetness of the bread, and the coconut adds an extra layer of flavor. I would highly recommend this recipe!
I’m off to grade a little more…see you for dinner!
