I was really in the mood to bake some bread the other day; any kind would do, so I picked up some cookbooks and started leafing through the bread sections. It all sounded terribly good, until I realized I didn’t have any yeast (I hate restarting my kitchen staples, because I never think to buy things I’m used to having on hand). So I moved on to the sweet breads, and thought it would be really nice to have some banana bread . . . until I realized we had eaten the last banana that morning (and a trip to the grocery store was not going to happen). Then a corner recipe caught my attention—carrot bread. It started from the same basic recipe as the banana, but had some alterations, and I just happened to have every main ingredient on hand.
Now, typically I like to start with the base recipe for things like this, and then tweak it later, but I really wanted to at least pretend I was making a healthy snack, so I decided to tweak right away. The result was not phenomenal, but definitely edible, and good enough to share, so here is my carrot bread recipe (I even wrote down what I used this time!).
1 3/4 c. whole wheat flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
sprinkle of ginger
1/2 c. yogurt
2 T applesauce
1/3 c. honey
1/3 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 c. shredded peeled carrots
1/2 c. orange juice
1/4 tsp almond extract
1/4 tsp maple flavoring
*Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and flour loaf pan.
*Mix together dry ingredients.
*Cream together yogurt, honey, and sugar. Add eggs one at a time. Slowly add in flour mixture—just enough to incorporate.
Yogurt, honey, sugar, and eggs
With dry ingredients mixed in
*In a small bowl, combine carrots, orange juice, almond extract, and maple flavoring. Add it to the batter.
Mmm...carrots
The batter is not quite as visually appealing
*Pour into loaf pan and bake 1 hour, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Before
After
Ok. Now for a little commentary. First, I will explain the changes I made. I used the whole wheat flour in place of all purpose flour, and I added a half a teaspoon more of baking powder. I would not recommend that (more on that in a bit). I used pumpkin pie spice because the recipe called for 1/4 teaspoons of cardamom, ginger, and allspice, and I didn’t have any cardamom and figured cinnamon wouldn’t hurt it. I don’t think that caused any problems in taste. I used the yogurt (happened to be French vanilla) and applesauce in place of 1/2 cup butter. I added the extra applesauce just for moistness since whole wheat flour tends to be denser. The bread was wonderfully moist, so I guess that worked. And I added the maple just because I wanted to.
Now, the only thing I would change besides the baking powder is the baking time. I didn’t actually cook mine for a whole hour, because I inserted my toothpick and it came out dry before then, but I think I just got lucky, because the center definitely was not cooked enough. So I recommend sticking with the hour cook time. The only issue I had with its taste was a slightly metallic after-taste, which I had just noticed in the tortilla I made as well. So I did a little online research and discovered something very interesting.
Depending on the brand of baking powder that you use, it may or may not contain sodium aluminum sulfate. I used Clabber Girl, and it does in fact contain the aluminum, which is what is giving me the metallic taste. Now, I only got this off of a forum posting, but let’s assume it’s accurate:
“Aluminum acid salts are more shelf-stable and reliable for double-acting leavening (at lower and higher temperatures); if used in high-sugared, well-flavored things like cakes, the metallic taste can be masked better than in simpler things like griddle cakes and biscuits and plain quick breads.
Calcium phosphate is the common alternative acid salt in non-aluminum baking powders.”
I felt this explained it pretty succinctly, but I did go on to read up a little more on baking powder, and found the same information repeated. I really enjoyed this article; she did a taste-test with a cake, making one with a SAS baking powder, and one that was SAS free. Her test subjects didn’t all notice the difference, but the majority felt there was a bitter taste to the one with the SAS baking powder. Also, if I understand it correctly, baking powder is used in recipes where there is no acidic ingredient, but remember I substituted things. I used yogurt, honey, and orange juice, so I wonder if maybe baking soda could be used in this recipe instead? (You can actually make your own baking powder out of baking soda and cream of tartar.) I am really wanting to learn and understand more and more of this chemistry of baking; it’s like being made aware of the beauty of the semi-colon! Greater knowledge leads to greater understanding, and in this case, perhaps greater desserts. Maybe I’ll quit this blogging business and actually go to baking school . . . or I could go and then just blog about it. (Thinking maybe I should just go to bed.)
Anyway, as a final note, the carrot bread is really good with Nutella. 
The Daring Kitchen
