July 1st Bread Braid with HBin5

Assignment:

1/2 Recipe of Whole Wheat Mixed Berry Bread, pgs 197-200

1/2 Recipe of Whole Wheat Banana Bread, pgs 200-203  (this one will be a post at a later time)

While we can not put the recipe on our blogs, due to our agreement with the authors of Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, we can share what and how we substituted with the group in our blogs.

I've been using Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois two books, Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day and Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day since their books came out. I love the ease of the recipes, and the wonderful way they come out. I very seldom buy bread anymore.

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Substitutions:

Canned sour cherries for the frozen berries.

1/2c honey instead of 1/4c.

2 tsp almoond extract.

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OK, so the July 1st assignment is a whole wheat berry bread or muffins using frozen berries that are thawed out.  I have about 1 cup of frozen raspberries which I refuse to use in a bread...they're for Ken to eat with some Splenda on them.  So next I looked at the supply of dried berries.  Not much there either, and the little there is needs to be saved for our trail mix we carry when kayaking. 

But I did have 3 cans of sour cherries that I had just picked up at Ollie's one of our discount stores.  I love sour cherries!  I love a good sour cherry pie with almonds best.  So why not make a sour cherry almond bread?  Ooooh!  Now that sounds good. 

I mixed up the dough as instructed and it came out very good.  Instead of 1/4 c honey I upped it to 1/2c because I knew with the sour cherries I would need just a bit more sweetness.  Two cans sour cherries are just right.  I reserved the juice from the second cup of cherries because I did not want to make the dough overly wet and this dough is very wet as it is. 

Next day I took the dough out.  It's a very moist, loose dough.  So what to do with it?  Still thinking about the cherry pie, I decided I HAD to take it a step further.  LOL.  So I rolled a section of the dough into a circle.

I spread ricotta cheese on the circle of dough, add some extra sour cherries (from a third can) and chopped almonds.  The dough is so soft that I lift a quarter of it with my flat dough scraper.  I go around lifting and laying the dough into the center, until I am all the way around.  The I pinch the dough together to keep the fillings from bubbling out, I hope!  I lift the entire thing with my dough scraper and place it gently in one of the big muffin silicone cups I love to use for small round loaves. 

Ken couldn't wait once I took the cherry almond ricotta muffin out of the oven!  Pssstt I didn't even whisper the word whole wheat to him!  The bread was so tender and delicious!  BTW no, he didn't use the raspberry jam next to the plate. 

The filling is well distributed plentiful! 

 

I made 6 of these huge muffins, and then decided I needed to try a loaf but decided I would fill it with ricotta, cherries and almonds also.  But I remembered an episode of Everyday Italian : Giada De Laurentiis on Food Network.  She explained how she loves ricotta cheese for dessert with a drizzle of honey.  So that's what I did!

Again, I had to use the dough scraper to bring up each 1/4 side and continue all the way around. 

Once I had it all wrapped up I gently lifted it with the scraper and dropped it into a loaf pan that I had rubbed butter on the inside.  I brushed extra cherry juice on it just before I baked it.  There was no reason to slash the dough that I could see. 

The breads did not come out burned but they look like it in this picture.  Also that white spot is ricotta trying to escape.  

As usual I wanted to share the fun and flavors...so this time I took a few of the muffin loaves into the gals that work in the cafe in the building where I work.  I always have a great time with the crew of the Coffee Company cafe. Even if I am not getting something to eat I stop in and we exchange laughs and jokes.  When I told Bev and Carolyn that I wanted a picture of them "cheek to cheek"... meaning their two heads together...they immediately went into this pose!  LOL. 

They loved the bread and the filling! While they were waxing on about how good it was a customer heard them, and she ended up sharing in the bounty also!

Here is Carol, a customer of the cafe proudly showing her portion of my latest bread...I am still not sure what to call it!

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