Citrus Cranberry Bread

For me, right after pumpkin, cranberry is the other most important holiday flavor.  I have kind of gotten in to using dried cranberries this last year, and although growing up I never liked cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving, this year I made some fresh cranberry relish and really enjoyed it.  So I bought some more cranberries after Thanksgiving and was looking for ways to use them.

I saw someone making lemon cranberry bread on tv and of course I could not remember who.  I started searching for a recipe and found one on the Food TV site for Betsy's Lemon-Cranberry Bread.  I used this recipe as a base for my changes. (I just went back to share the link with you and the recipe doesn't seem to be there.) I used fresh cranberries and along with the lemon, this was a very tart bread.  It was delicious, but if you prefer something a little sweeter, you may want to substitute orange in this recipe.  I made it a second time and did just that.  The other thing that I did the second time was to cook the fresh cranberries for a few minutes.  It did change the complexity of this recipe.  Both were wonderful, just different.  This bread does have a glaze and because it was the holidays, I did use regular powdered sugar.  Therefore, this is a   Low Sugar  recipe.  If you would like to make it a  No Sugar Added  recipe, simply make the glaze from a powdered sugar substitute.

•  2/3 c. I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, softened
• 1 1/2 c. Splenda
• 1/2 c. no-fat, plain yogurt
• 4 T. lemon or orange juice
• 2 T. lemon or orange zest
• 4 eggs
• 3 c. flour
• 3 1/2 t. baking powder
• 1 1/2 t. salt
• 1 c. low-fat milk, 1% or 2%
• 2 c. cranberries, dried or fresh*
• 1 c. pecans or walnuts, chopped  (optional)

Glaze

• 3 large spoonfuls powdered sugar
• fresh citrus juice

 Cream butter, Splenda, juice and zest.  Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each one.
In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients.  Then add the dry ingredients alternately to batter with milk, starting and ending with the dry ingredients.

 Stir in cranberries and nuts.  Spray 2 loaf pans.  I was making some gifts for the holidays and had some mini loaf pans.  This recipe will make between 4 and 6, depending upon the size of your pans.
Bake at 335 degrees for 1 hour for the regular loaves or 40 minutes for mini loaves.

 Cool in the pan for 10 minutes.  Remove from pan to a wire rack.  Use a skewer, or other sharp object and poke 12 or so holes into the loaf.  Cool the bread completely.

 Whisk together the glaze by adding the juice to the powdered sugar just a little at a time, until you have a thin, pour-able consistency.

For powdered sugar substitute:  Mix 1 c. non-fat dry milk, I c. cornstarch, and 2/3 c. Splenda

 Spoon glaze over the bread allowing it to soak into the holes.  You may want to put some wax paper under your wire rack, just to make clean up a little easier.

 This bread has a refreshing taste and with the red color of the cranberries, it certainly is festive for the holidays,  But I think it would be good any time of year.

*The second time I made this bread, I decided to cut down on the tartness of the cranberries.  I put them in a small skillet with about 1/3 c. Splenda and a T. of lemon juice.  I cooked these down for about 10-15 minutes on a medium-low heat.  The cranberries will burst open and the sugar will dissolve.  Allow the cranberries to cool before adding to the batter.

Pumpkin Bread

It's FALL!  The chill is definitely in the air and while in general, cooler weather is not exciting to me...the one thing that I LOVE about fall is...pumpkin!  It shows up everywhere.  I couldn't believe it, but a few places even started having pumpkin flavors out in September.  One of my favorite things is pumpkin ice cream, and of course I have to be very careful with that, but always try to get by with a few bites.  This year, I was so excited when I went one afternoon to get a frozen yogurt and they had pumpkin!!!  Yeah!  It is delicious and I don't have to worry about it hurting my tummy.  Maybe one day I will see if I can figure out how to make my own pumpkin frozen yogurt.

The one thing that I know I can make is pumpkin bread.  I am not sure where this recipe came from, but it is the one that I got from my mother and the only one I have ever used my whole life.  I have converted this recipe to a  Low Sugar  recipe.  Of course, as we have discussed before, the raisins have some natural sugar, but also, this recipe uses brown sugar.  The Splenda Blend product is a half and half product, but also you use only half the amount that your recipe calls for.  So, that means that the amount of sugar is 1/4 that of the original recipe.

So here is the converted recipe:

• 1 c. canned pumpkin
• 1/2 c. Splenda Blend brown sugar
• 1/2 c. Splenda, granulated
• 1/2 c. vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 c. no-sugar-added applesauce
• 2 c. flour
• 1 t. baking soda
• 1 t. baking powder
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1/2 t. nutmeg
• 1/2 t. cinnamon
• 1/2 t. ginger
• 1/4 c. water
• 1/2 c. raisins
• 1/2 c. chopped nuts, optional

 In a large mixing bowl, combine the pumpkin, sugars, oil, and applesauce.  Mix until smooth.  I guess that you can use a mixer if you want to, but there really is no need.  A wooden spoon or spatula will work just fine and they mix fairly easily.
In a small bowl, beat the eggs and then add them to the wet mixture and incorporate them.
Next add the dry ingredients to the bowl and stir in.
Finally add the water, raisins and nuts (if desired).  Now I will give a personal commentary here:  I don't think that you can ever have too many raisins.  So you could add up to a full cup of raisins if you are a raisin lover like me.

 Well-oil or well-spray a loaf pan and add batter.
Bake at 335 degrees for 55 minutes.

 This is going to make your house smell amazing.  I love the warmth of the cinnamon and nutmeg.  After removing it from the oven, let it sit in the pan for 5-7 minutes.  Run a knife around the edge and turn out onto a cooling rack.
Now I don't know about you...







...but I can't ever wait for it to cool, and I always hope that maybe just a little spot in the middle didn't quite get done and is still just a little gooey.  So I just cut it right through and take my nice warm piece right out of the center.
Just as a preview, know that there will be more pumpkin flavors as we get closer to Thanksgiving.  Why don't we eat pumpkin year round...???

Banana Blueberry Muffins

Several years ago, my sister, Trudi, gave me a basic muffin recipe.  This is a great flexible muffin recipe that you can add whatever kind of fruit you like or have on hand.  It doesn't have a large amount of sugar in the original recipe, so the substitution is fairly simple.  But, it is a  No Sugar Added  recipe, because there are natural sugars in the fruit and the milk.

What I have discovered as I have been making these with Splenda, is that the muffins will stay moist if you add a little more moisture in order to take the place of the moisture in the sugar.  Most of the time, a half cup of no-sugar-added applesauce is the perfect addition, since it doesn't really add any flavor to conflict with your other flavors of choice.

So in this case I had a couple of bananas that were on their way out, but plain banana muffins just didn't sound very exciting.  Then I remembered that I had frozen blueberries in my freezer that I had picked up at a local blueberry farm back in June.  Since I had two bananas and you really only need one for this recipe, I decided that I didn't need to add any applesauce.

Here's the basic recipe:

• 1 3/4 c. flour
• 1/3 c. Splenda
• 1/2 t. salt
• 2 1/2 t. baking powder
• 1 t. cinnamon
• 1/2 t. nutmeg
• 1/3 c. oil
• 1 egg
• 3/4 c. milk (I use 2%, just because that is what I have in my fridge on a regular basis)
• fruit and/or flavorings of your choice  (in this recipe, I used two bananas and about 3/4 c. frozen blueberries)

This is a very easy to put together batter; you just put everything in a bowl and mix with a whisk or a spatula.

 For my bananas, I just used a smaller bowl and mashed them really well before adding them into the batter.  Once they were well incorporated, I added the blueberries, straight from the freezer.  Voila....the batter is done.

In all the years that I have baked muffins, they have always come out a little on the small side.  So one morning when making muffins this last summer, I decided to do what you do in the 21st century when you want to know how to do something...I Googled it!  And I found The Prepared Pantry.  They had it layed out in three easy steps!  1)  Fill your muffin tins full; 2) Make sure that your batter is thick (this recipe does make a thick batter); and 3) Bake them at a high temp (425) for the first few minutes.  Great tips!  They work like a charm.

 So the next step is to fill the muffin tin.  Spray your cups.  Remember that we are going to fill the muffin cups full; so while this recipe would make 12 regular size muffins, depending on the amount of fruit you add, you will probably only get 9 or 10.  You may want to hold off on spraying the last few cups until you see how far your batter is going to go.  Add a little water to the empty cups.  Preheat your oven to 425.  This recipe calls to bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes.  I bake it at 425 for 7 minutes and then turn the temp down to 400 for an additional 10 minutes.

And this is what your muffins will look like...high tops, moist and fresh.  They look like you could buy them in a bakery.  I'm sure that I don't have to tell you that they taste amazing hot out of the oven, with a little I Can't Believe It's Not Butter melting into those hot, bursting blueberries...enjoy!

Note: There are so many choices for these muffins; blueberries, blackberries, apples, pineapple, dried cranberries, raisins, pecans, etc.  Start to think of some combinations and you can come up with your own original flavor of muffin.

Chocolate Banana Chocolate Chip Bread

One day last winter, I was watching Paul Deen one afternoon and she was doing a show on chocolate..Well of course she had my attention; what girl doesn't love chocolate.  One of the recipes she was making was a Chocolate Bread.  So I started writing down the recipe, and by the time the bread came out of the oven, I was in my kitchen thinking that I needed to make this bread!

So the first problem I had was that I was out of cocoa...Really??  Who ever RUNS OUT of cocoa?  I wasn't ready to give up quite so easily and so the scouring of my pantry began, looking for what I had that was chocolate.  The first substitution I made to the recipe was for the chocolate chips; I did have white chocolate chips and I decided that would be pretty.  Then I found some chocolate almond bark left over from the last time I had dipped pretzels; maybe that would work.

I substituted some melted almond bark for the cocoa and as I was mixing up the batter, I noticed I had a rather ripe banana on my counter.  Since I was using Splenda in my version, I decided that the batter could use a little more moisture, so I mashed up the banana and threw it in.  So for my first try, the white chocolate chips were heavy and pretty much sank to the bottom, but my husband fell in love with this bread!

The next time I went to the store, I bought some cocoa.  He happened to be home when I started to mix up the batter again, and I mentioned the substitution.  He wasn't going to stand for it...whatever I did the first time, I had better do again, because he loved that bread!  I used the almond bark again and I waited to add the chocolate chips until after the first 10 minutes of cooking...Perfect!  My husband starting buying bananas every time he went to the store and made sure it was known that they had better not all get eaten; some WOULD get too ripe and then there would be no choice but to make this bread.

So even though this bread has been successful for me, it would be a  Reduced Sugar  recipe.  As you can imagine, there is quite a bit of sugar in the almond bark and some sugar in the white chocolate chips.  So, I have made this recipe with the cocoa and with sugar-free chocolate chips.  These substitutions make it a  No Sugar Added  recipe, since there are natural sugars in the banana.  Both versions are decadent, but you can taste the difference in the richness of the version with the almond bark.  So...pick your pleasure, depending upon your own personal sugar needs; they are simple substitutions and don't change the recipe otherwise.

2 1/4 c. flour
2 c. Splenda
3/4 c. cocoa  or  4 sq. chocolate almond bark, melted
3 1/2 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
1 c. vegetable oil
1 1/2 c. milk (I have used 2%)
3 eggs
1 t. vanilla
2 ripe bananas, well-mashed
sugar-free chocolate chips  or  white chocolate chips





After whisking together all of the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl, add the wet ingredients and mix well.

Mash the bananas in a separate small bowl.  The more you mash them the more incorporated they will be into the batter.  Add to the batter and mix well.

 Spray two loaf pans well and preheat oven to 300 F.  Bake the bread for 10 minutes.

Remove the pans from the oven and sprinkle the chocolate chips all over the top of the bread.  Allowing the bread to bake for this short time, allows it to set just enough that the chocolate chips will stay on the top.  (Since this recipe makes 2 loaves, you'll notice that I put the sugar-free chips on one loaf and the white chips on the other loaf...gotta keep the hubby happy!)


Return the bread to the oven and bake for an additional 60 minutes.

All I can say is .... Mmmmmmmm....Warm, chocolatey, banana bread...pretty decadent.