Making The Daily Bread

Onion skins!  In bread??  I’ve been constantly amazed at what I can add to the mix when I’m baking bread, that makes a delicious loaf and cuts down on waste.  Win-win.  My experimental Frankenstein Loaf is constantly evolving… 

My bread-maker is the second I’ve owned. The first died from overuse and I’m sure the second will go the same way sometime in the future. It’s not that we eat a vast amount of bread but, what with up to six people wanting toast, lunch sandwiches and snacks, it doesn’t take long for a loaf to disappear. I like to know what’s in a loaf, and I’m constantly looking at ways to cut costs. Making our own means we can produce a tasty, healthy, filling loaf for a fraction of the cost of a comparable one at the shop or bakery.

I’m not the only one producing bread. Adrian makes a great French loaf with a beautiful crisp crust and soft interior, while Annie often makes a fresh white loaf in the evening for school lunches the next day.

My Road Less Travelled

I, however, go in a different direction, as is often my wont. A few years ago, my daughter asked me to make zucchini loaf (her favourite at the time, which she’d had at a friend’s). We had a plant producing more zooks than we could eat or bottle. It was a great way to use the excess, especially the ones that hide away until they’re ‘marrows-of-uncommon-size’. I got hold of a recipe and we proceeded to plough our way through the glut of produce, helped by said daughter’s friends who got a taste for my bread.

Once the zucchini season came to an end, I was prodded to buy more in order to keep the supply of bread going. This idea went against my grain. I wanted to eat from our garden as much as possible and, when we couldn’t, to buy what was in season, and therefore cheaper. This started my ‘experimental phase’.

Looking For Another Way

What makes a good substitute for grated zucchini? Well, quite a bit as it happens, and I’m sure I haven’t exhausted the list yet. I’d read somewhere about the waste of throwing away all the goodness in broccoli stalks, so I started there. I grated a complete stalk, raw, into the mix, adjusted the liquid content (zucchini is way wetter than broccoli) and set it off. Complete success! OK what else could we add here? How about cauliflower stalks? Another winner. Carrots? Great. Apple? Awesome.

And What Else?

Even onion skins and raw pumpkin seed (hulls included) blended together, made it into the mix, adding an extra texture and depth I wasn’t expecting! I got this particular idea from www.pigtitsandparsleysauce.co.nz (Day #141 if you’re looking), whose stories, hints and experiments are inspirational and fun in equal measure. 

As well as the list above, I’ve used, either alone or in various combo deals; onion, pumpkin, cabbage stalk, cooked rice, parsnip, pear and kiwifruit. The only thing that has not resulted in a nice loaf is the kiwifruit. I’d say that’s mostly to do with its acidic qualities. As an aside, Adrian was happy at that failure as it’s one fruit he detests.

The bread was good, healthy and popular. It also dealt with quite a lot that would otherwise be thrown out, such as veggie stalks and fruit with blemishes. My experimentation didn’t stop there though. Oh no, I’d only just got started.

Adding Some Oomph!

As we do a lot of physical exercise my next step was to look at getting more protein into the loaf. My first, maybe obvious, choice was cheese. Oh my gosh – yum! When there’s a dry end of a block of cheddar, or a feta getting old, that’s where they head, grated or crumbled accordingly. The next thing to catch my eye was yoghurt.

I make my yoghurt (more on this another time) and always strain it to make a thick, creamy Greek style. The whey that comes from the straining is pure protein. It gets used for nothing else in this household, so it’s added to the bread mix, replacing the water.

Then there’s the yoghurt itself. I love my yoghurt but it’s not eaten voraciously by the others so sometimes I have too much – aha – more tasty protein.

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A Recipe?

The recipe I started with has totally evolved, though it keeps the basics of flour, yeast, salt and an oil (butter, olive, coconut or veggie oil, depending on what’s at hand). But I couldn’t write it down. The other ingredients, and their quantities, change from loaf to loaf. I just add what I have, judge the amount by eye and add the whey liquid (warmed in the microwave) slowly to get the dough consistency looking right.

The End Result

And what does all this taste like? The flavour, though varying, has a definite hint of the yoghurt, is fresh and moist from the veg but with good body from the proteins in the cheese, yoghurt and whey. I’d hazard a guess that some in the household would prefer a bought, soft, white loaf, but, it always disappears in a flash, and my daughters’ friends are very happy when a fresh loaf appears.

Let me know if anyone else has Frankenstien Loaf tendencies and what you’re adding.  I’m always up to trying something new.