Carrot Banana Cake

We’re still anxiously awaiting our return to our permanent property. The work on our new house is progressing, and the kitchen is starting to take shape with cabinets being set into position. Every day brings a new dilemma like what kind of outlets should be installed on the island? Hopefully, all of the issues will be solved soon, and I’ll be in my new kitchen in time for holiday baking season. I realized how much I’ve missed more frequent baking as I turned the pages of Yvette Van Boven’s newest book Home Baked. I recently received a review copy. I was hooked on this book from the very beginning thanks to the tips for homemade vanilla extract, natural food coloring, and a list of flours from various grains to use. The Bread chapter won me over quickly with tender Potato Rolls, Spicy Italian Anchovy-Garlic Bread, and the use of a sourdough starter for bread and pizza dough. The recipes are a mix of sweet treats and some more wholesome options with whole grains and less sugar. There are cakes, bars, cookies, pies, and pastry, and even treats for canine friends. I took one look at the Speculaas cookies and wanted to find out how to order a board with a windmill mold to make them. (Incidentally, I found one here.) And, the Pear Caramel Pies with Walnuts look decadent with the crisp puff pastry and drizzles of homemade caramel. Since I’m still doing my best to keep sugar intake at a minimum, I decided to try the Carrot Banana Cake. It’s a cross between a carrot cake and banana bread, and it’s lightly sweetened with just a couple of tablespoons of honey. The rest of the sweetness comes from apple juice, carrots, and the fruit in the cake. 

This is a little different from other banana bread recipes because the bananas are sliced rather than mashed. There were supposed to have been dried apricots in the recipe, but as seems to happen to me often with various ingredients, the day I needed dried apricots there were none to be found. I used dried plums instead. To begin, apple juice (and I love that organic unsweetened apple juice was recommended), grated carrots, halved dried plums in my case, and honey were combined in a saucepan and brought to a boil. The pan was removed from the heat, and it was left to rest for 30 minutes. Spelt flour, grated unsweetened coconut, baking powder, ground ginger, and salt were sifted together. There’s a note that cinnamon is nice here as well, so I added some. The carrot and apple juice mixture was added to the flour mixture, beaten eggs were stirred in, and last the banana slices were folded into the batter. The cake baked for about 50 minutes. 

I tasted the batter just before transferring it to the baking pan. I thought it tasted not sweet enough and worried the cake would be bland. But, it didn’t occur to me that I was tasting plain batter with no banana in it. Once the cake was baked and sliced, and the banana slices were evenly distributed and found their way into each bite. They added just enough extra sweetness. I loved the texture with the carrots and all the fruit, and I wouldn’t change a thing the next time I bake it. Now, if we can just get moved, I can wait to start breaking in my new, roomier kitchen with lots of baking. 

Carrot Banana Cake 
Recipe reprinted with publisher’s permission from Home Baked. 

Oh, delicious. Look, I figured: I love carrot cake, I love banana bread, why don’t I throw the two together and combine them into a single thing I love? The cake doesn’t contain any sugar, butter, or wheat, so it’s pretty healthy. But by adding the apricots, banana, apple juice, and carrot, it ends up being pretty sweet anyhow. If you can’t get spelt flour, you can of course simply use wheat flour, I won’t stop you. Bake this cake and bring a thick slice to work. It’s the perfect snack. 

for 1 cake, prep 25 min., inactive 30 min., bake 50 min. 
wheat-free, lactose-free, refined sugar–free 

1 cup (250 ml) unsweetened organic apple juice 
1 1/4 cups (150 g) grated carrot 
2/3 cup (100 g) unsulphured dried apricots, halved 
2 to 3 tbsp honey or agave syrup 
2 cups plus 2 tbsp (250 g) light spelt flour 
1/2 cup (50 g) grated unsweetened coconut 
2 tsp baking powder 
1 tbsp ground ginger (cinnamon is nice too)
pinch of salt 
3 eggs, beaten 
2 bananas, sliced 

Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180°C). Position a rack in the center. Thoroughly grease a 1 1/2-qt (1.5-L) loaf pan, or any other pan with approximately the same volume. I use some melted coconut oil, but baking spray or olive oil also works fine. 

In a saucepan, bring the apple juice, carrot, apricots, and honey to a boil. Turn off the heat and allow to rest for 30 minutes. Let cool until the mixture is nearly at room temperature. I usually spoon the mixture into a large dish to make sure it cools faster. 

Meanwhile, combine the flour with the coconut, baking powder, ginger, and salt. Then spoon in the carrot mixture. Stir in the beaten eggs and finally the banana slices. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake the cake for 50 minutes or so. The cake is done when a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Let it cool in the pan, then turn out onto a rack. Once cooled off, the cake will be slightly firmer. 

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Kamut Crispbreads

As much as I love baking with my sourdough starter and love using all sorts of different grains in bread recipes, until recently, I’d never converted my starter to whole wheat. I knew it was an easy thing to do. You just start feeding it with whole wheat flour or a mix of whole wheat and bread flour. You can just as easily convert a starter with rye flour for rye bread, but I haven’t done that yet. The inspiration for going whole wheat with my starter came from the latest book from Chad Robertson, Tartine Book No. 3, and I received a review copy. If you’re familiar with his previous bread book, Tartine Bread, then the basic approach to bread baking will come as no surprise. He makes a leaven with a small amount of sourdough starter to prevent the final flavor from being too sour and then builds the dough from there. He works with very wet doughs and suggests baking loaves in a lidded cast iron pot. The techniques are all the same in this book for the hearth-style loaves, but this book starts fresh with a focus on different grains. Robertson had traveled to different parts of the world and took notice of the grains used by bakers in those locations. In Denmark, specific Nordic grains not found in the US were used in breads; in Sweden, bakers were using freshly-milled, biodynamic grains; and in Germany, a bakery was stone-grinding their flour daily. Back at home, he began experimenting with ways of using higher percentages of a variety of grains in breads without making the final loaves too dense. So, this new book includes loaves with mixes of whole grain flours, some made with sprouted grains both for hearth-style loaves and pan loaves, and breads made with porridge and cracked grains. And, then these different types of flour appear in crispbreads, cookies, eclairs, cakes, tarts, and scones. When I first flipped through this book, I was delighted by the look of the delicate crispbreads. The dough is rolled extremely thin either by hand or with a pasta machine, and the crisps are either topped with seeds or layered-over with herbs or thinly sliced nuts or vegetables. They’re like shards of delicious, edible, stained glass. 

In this book, the dough-making technique is explained in parts. At the beginning, the master method is explained for making a starter with a blend of whole wheat and bread flours with instructions for feeding it and making a leaven from it. Then, in the Crispbreads chapter, there’s a master method for using that leaven to make these doughs. The Crispbread doughs are not as high in hydration as those for hearth-style loaves, so it’s much easier to work with. Each Crispbread recipe includes an ingredient list for the flours used and quantities of water and leaven. The dough for the Kamut Crispbreads included whole-grain kamut flour, bread flour, wheat germ, salt, water, and leaven. It was mixed and left in the refrigerator overnight. The next day, the dough was divided into small pieces, and I used the pasta machine technique to roll each piece into long, thin ribbons. I topped the ribbons of dough with parsley leaves, thinly sliced garlic, lemon zest, and crushed red pepper. Then, the dough was folded over to encase the herbs and spices inside, and it was rolled through the machine again to seal it. The long pieces were cut into portions, brushed with melted butter, sprinkled with salt and pepper, and baked until crisp. They do brown quickly, so you need to watch and pull them from the oven before they get too dark. To further crisp them, they were placed back in the oven at a lower temperature on racks to fully dehydrate. 

I look forward to sprouting grains for the hearth-style loaves and trying some of the darker, seeded pan loaves like the Sprouted Buckwheat-Einkorn bread. I already visited the Pastry chapter and tried the Croquant D’Amandes which are kind of like almond biscotti made with hibiscus flowers, spelt flour, and kamut flour. They were crunchy, nutty, and deliciously tangy from the hibiscus, but mine turned out a bit flatter than what’s shown in the photo. The whole grain Pate a Choux dough has me very curious, and the Salted Chocolate-Rye Cookies look hard to resist. I can already tell I’ll be spending more time tracking down a variety of whole grain flours to use. 

Kamut Crispbreads 
Recipe reprinted with publisher’s permission from Tartine Book No. 3. 

Whole-grain Kamut flour (60%) 170 g 
Medium-strong bread flour (40%) 113g 
Wheat germ (7%) 20g 
Fine sea salt (2.5%) 7g 
Water (50%) 142g 
Leaven (15%) 45g 

*Herbs, edible flowers, and shaved vegetables for filling (optional) and flaky salt such as Maldon. 

(The dough is started by making a leaven from a mature starter that’s been fed with a mix of 50% whole wheat flour and 50% bread flour. The leaven is made with one tablespoon of starter, 200 grams of the 50/50 whole wheat-bread flour mixture, and 200 grams of warm water. The leaven is mixed and left at room temperature for 4 – 6 hours before proceeding with the recipe below.) 

Mix the dough with the above ingredients. Let ferment overnight, covered, in the refrigerator. The next day, divide the dough into small pieces, each about 50 grams, and shape into rounds. Let rest for 10 to 15 minutes. 

To make with a pasta machine: 
Flour your work surface and the dough. With a rolling pin, roll one piece of dough just thin enough so it will fit through the widest setting on your pasta machine. Flour the dough well, then feed it through the machine. Repeat this step, reducing the opening of the rollers a notch with each pass until you’ve reached the Number 1 setting on the pasta machine, flouring the dough each time as necessary to prevent sticking. 

As the dough gets thinner, use the backs of your hands to guide the dough through the rollers to help prevent tears. If at any time you feel your dough is too long to manage, cut it in half and roll both pieces separately. Transfer the dough to a well-floured work surface. 

To make filled crispbreads, after the final pass, transfer the dough to a well-floured surface. Roughly mark the center of your dough and, with a pastry brush, brush one half lightly with water. Lay the filling of your choice on the moistened half of the dough in a single layer, arranging it artfully, then fold the dough, encasing the filling, and pat well so that the two pieces of dough adhere to one another. 

Flour the dough well, then run it through the pasta machine again, beginning on the Number 4 or 5 setting and continuing until you’ve passed the dough through the Number 1 or 2 setting (depending on the thickness of the filling). 

Transfer the dough to a floured surface and cut each crispbread into the desired shape, transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet, and brush with melted butter. Sprinkle with flaked salt. Bake at 425 degrees F/220 degrees C for 10 to 15 minutes, until golden brown. Remove from the oven. 

Reduce the oven temperature to 200 degrees F/95 degrees C. When the oven has cooled, remove the crispbreads from the baking sheets and return them to the oven, placing them directly on the oven racks. To allow moisture to escape, leave the oven door slightly cracked (use the handle of a wooden spoon to keep it ajar), and bake 10 to 15 minutes longer, until the crispbreads are thoroughly dehydrated. They should not have darkened in color. 

Carefully remove from the oven and transfer to a cooling rack. Once cool, break into large pieces or transfer whole to an airtight container right away so they stay crisp; they will keep for a week stored properly and can be recrisped by heating again in a moderate oven (300 degrees F/150 degrees C) for 10 to 12 minutes. 

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Spelt Salad with Squash and Fennel

In a rare instance of Kurt noticing what’s been happening in the kitchen, he pointed out that I’ve been making a lot of salads lately. It’s true. There was the Crunchy Corn Tortilla Salad the other day, a sesame soba noodle salad with cucumbers that I haven’t posted yet, and we have a big lettuce salad with hard-boiled eggs for dinner about once a week. At least there’s been variety among all those salads. And, the one I have for you today might not even really be a salad. It could function as a whole grain, vegetarian main course or a side dish, and you can serve it at whatever temperature you prefer. So, I don’t think this counts in the nothing-but-salads-lately tally. Besides, we’re at that juncture at which we still have plenty of summer vegetables showing up at the markets, and the fall ones are just starting to appear. Why not use them in all kinds of salads and dishes that may or may not be salads? This Spelt Salad with Squash and Fennel is from River Cottage Veg, and it is a lovely way to move from one season to the next. I used two cute, little acorn squash from our CSA. Other than the spelt which is cooked on top of the stove, everything else is roasted in one pan. The ingredients are added to the pan in turn in order of needed cooking time starting with the squash. The cooked, chewy spelt was mixed with the roasted vegetables, toasted walnuts, lemon juice, and parmesan to finish the dish. 

The cooking time for the spelt will vary quite a bit depending on whether or not you’re using pearled spelt. I did not use pearled spelt, and so it needed to cook for a little over an hour. Pearled spelt will cook in about 20 minutes. While it was cooking, the vegetables were roasted in a 375 degree F oven. The acorn squash, tossed with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper, went into the oven first and roasted for about 15 minutes. Then, two fennel bulbs sliced into thin pieces and some chopped garlic was added to the roasting pan which went back into the oven for another 15 minutes. Last, walnuts were added to the pan for ten more minutes of roasting. The cooked spelt was drained and transferred to a large mixing bowl. The roasted vegetables and walnuts were added to the spelt with the olive oil remaining in the roasting pan. The juice of a lemon was added with chopped parsley and shredded parmesan. 

This was delicious with the vegetables still a little warm from the oven, but it was just as good served chilled from the refrigerator the next day. The spelt makes it hearty and filling, but the lemon and parsley keep the flavors bright. This recipe was just one of several that piqued my interest from the latest River Cottage book, and lucky for Kurt, they’re not all salads. 

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