Berry Loaf

What a welcome relief it is to see that spring may have finally arrived, giving us a much-needed break from the dreadfully cold winter we’ve been through!

Forecasters are predicting seasonal to above average temperatures for much of the coming week, and this summertime lover could not be happier! Especially since I was finally able to get out today for my first outdoor run (Read: Jog!) of the year! For the curious, it was a 5K out & back in my quiet little neighbourhood. I completed it in roughly 0:36:45, which equates to a snail’s pace of around 11:50. I even took a few blurry shots along the way to document the occasion 🙂

The spring melt begins!

1 mile down, 2.11 to go!

The half way mark, time to turn back for home 🙂

So how about we celebrate the warmer temps, by hitting the kitchen and whipping up a sweet loaf that is chock full of summer berry goodness?

If you’re not a fan of banana bread, you must give this recipe a try; there is nary a speck of banana but it packs a whole lot of flavour!

Adapted from Hershey’s Berry Loaf

INGREDIENTS:
2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
3/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
1 tsp. freshly grated orange zest
2 Tbs. coconut oil
1 egg
1 cup semi sweet (or dark) mini chocolate chips
3/4 cup walnuts
1/2 cup fresh, or frozen blueberries
1/2 cup dried sweetened cranberries

METHOD:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x5x3-inch loaf pan, (I prefer lining it with parchment paper.) In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a smaller bowl, whisk the orange juice, zest, oil and egg until well blended. Stir the juice mixture into the flour mixture along with the chips, nuts, blueberries and cranberries, do not overmix!

Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake approximately 65 to 70 minutes, depending on how hot your oven runs. NOTE: Inserting a toothpick to test for doneness doesn’t work too well with this recipe, given the amount of chocolate chips and fruit! Cool 10 minutes in the pan before removing to a wire rack. Yields 12 – 14 slices

Hershey’s offers an icing sugar glaze for this loaf, but I feel it’s not only unnecessary, but even detracts from the complexity of flavours from the bread itself. If you’d like to use a glaze, simply beat together 1 cup of icing sugar, 1 Tbs. softened butter, 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract, and approximately 1 Tbs. milk (you may need more, depending on how thin you want the glaze to be.) Stir until smooth and pour over the cooled bread. Enjoy!

Jelly Tidbits

Early this week, I found yet another little gem hidden in an old recipe book that we’ve had since, well, forever. The book was purchased from a nursing home in the town where I grew up and it contains several good recipes that we have tried over the years. It’s been rather neglected the last while, left to collect dust on the shelf in favor of the convenience of searching the Internet for recipes. The fact that the book contains no photos whatsoever makes it entirely unappealing to me, but through a moment of boredom, I pulled the book out, thumbed through those old pages and came upon this recipe that sounded quite promising.

“Jelly Tidbits” consists of an unsweetened cookie base, topped with a sweet meringue / coconut blend and finished off with cherry halves. They look absolutely adorable and would make a great addition to any Christmas cookie tray. Just a heads up, these are best eaten the day they are made as they do go stale fairly quickly (they are wonderful fresh from the oven!) They freeze and thaw out well enough, but for guests and special occasions I would definitely recommend baking them the day that you plan to serve them.

I added approximately 1/8 tsp. of almond extract to the filling but I really didn’t notice the flavor coming through. I think it could easily take 1/4 tsp. in both the base and filling. Because I used frozen cherries, they looked a little messy coming out of the oven. I may try using  glace cherries next time around and hope they come out a little neater in appearance.
I reorganized the recipe to make it a little easier to follow…

Base Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 egg yolks
1 Tbs. milk

Method:
Preheat oven to 325F. Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside. Beat together butter, egg yolks, and milk until creamy, then add the flour mixture. Mix until well combined, then turn out onto a lightly floured surface and roll out to approximately 1/4-in. thickness. Cut with small cookie cutter and place on ungreased baking sheet; set aside and prepare the filling.

Filling Ingredients:
2 egg whites
1 cup icing sugar
1/4 tsp. melted butter
2 cups unsweetened flaked or shredded coconut
12 Cherries, cut in half

Method:
Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form, gradually add icing sugar and butter. Fold in coconut. Spoon a small amount of filling onto cookies and top each with a cherry half. Bake in preheated oven approximately 12 to 15 minutes, or until cookie bottoms are golden and the coconut begins to brown at the edges. Yields approximately 24 Cookies.

Nutritional Information:
Calories per cookie: 88
Total Fat: 4.7g
–  Saturated Fat: 3.4g
Cholesterol: 19mg
Sodium: 41mg
Total Carbohydrate: 10.6g
–  Dietary Fiber: 0.8g
–  Sugars: 5.8g
Protein: 1.3g