Boat Food: Quick Breads!

I admit it.  I eat the same foods over and over.  And over.  Usually to the point I can't bear to look at that food again for a long time.

For a while now, that has been Avocado Toast.  It's super easy, delicious, and thanks to the avocado, very filling.  I just toast some really good bread (on the boat, that means put it in a skillet on the stove top...) and top it with avocado slices/smear and some sun dried, or really good, fresh tomatoes.  And maybe some seasoning salt.  I have been eating it off and on for years, but here on the boat, I'm finding that I eat it almost all week long.

Yesterday I ran out of bread.  Oh.  Em.  Gee.



We somehow suffered through with garlic/sundried tomato grits and kale/mushroom scrambled eggs.  Oh the sacrifices.

To remedy this, I scoured the ever trustworthy Pinterest boards for an easy bread to make on-board.  I've been saving some simple recipes and just needed to take the time to experiment.  If you've made bread, you know there's mixing and kneading and rolling and proofing and resting and punching down and... the list goes on and on.

As I scoured my saved recipes, I realized that while this is do-able, it is completely unnecessary.  Thanks to the days I spend at the bakery each day, working to add to our cruising funds and learn about running a small business (taco boat, anybody?!?), I also have learned a lot about making Quick Breads.  This little category of breads?  Well, it's screaming Boat Food.

In traditional, yeasted breads you have to follow those steps up there ↑.  And if you're cruising around exploring the world already, maybe you have time.  But do you have space?

For me, that's a big, fat no.  And that's where Quick Breads come in.  You basically just mix your dry ingredients in one bowl and your wet ingredients in another bowl.  Dump the wet into the dry and stir - minimally.  Just until your ingredients are wet.  If you get all crazy, A.D.D. on it, you will make your bread tough.  So trust me, and just give it a quick few stirs and dump it in the pan.  Also make sure the pan is ready to go - you've got a chemical reaction going into effect as soon as you mix the wet and dry together.

So how do quick breads turn into bread without yeast?  They typically have baking soda and or powder as well as eggs.  All of these work as leavening agents - they make your bread rise.  Thus the above chemical reaction.

Last night I had a major score and found a pin on Pinterest that is a basic quick bread recipe that you can adjust however you want.  Savory?  Sure just toss in some garlic and parmesan.  (or see below for my adjustments)  Sweet?  Think banana walnut, or cranberry lemon.  Or chocolate. Or cinnamon apple...  The combinations are endless - and thanks to this, I will likely be enjoying my avocado toast for eons!  Who can get bored with a toast base that is constantly changing?

So here's the basic recipe:

Basic Quick Bread Recipe

 

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

35 mins

Total time

45 mins

This is a base recipe for quick bread. Use this to create your own adaptation with various add ins and make it sweet or savory. Note: This is enough batter for a small loaf pan. I doubled the recipe for my large loaf pan and increased the bake time to 1 hour.

Author: Baker Bettie

Serves: 1 Loaf

Ingredients

• 1½ cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp kosher salt (up to 1 tsp if making a savory bread)
• 2 eggs (or egg replacement)
• 1 cup buttermilk (or other milk)
• ¼ cup oil or liquid fat

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Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Lightly oil a loaf pan or muffin tins and set aside.
2. In a large bowl stir together flour, salt, baking powder, and other dry herbs or spices if using.
3. In another bowl, lightly whisk together the eggs, oil, milk and sugar and other wet ingredients such as extracts if using.
4. Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir together just until combined.

Thanks again to Baker Bettie and her fabulous website for this recipe - and several others I am absolutely going to try!

Now here's what I did with her base recipe:

* 1/3 whole wheat flour

* full tsp of salt - and it was a chunky sea salt, so you can still really taste it

* almond milk with about a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar

* coconut oil as the fat - but warning, you need to cut this into your flour (mush it in with a fork or your hands, like making biscuits) because even if it's melted (it melts around 76 degrees) it will re-solidify as soon as and cold liquids hit it.  Ask me how I know.

* roasted pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds

* onion powder, garlic powder, dried thyme and rosemary

This is pretty much the only milk sub I've found that I like.

I baked it following her directions, but if you're on a boat, you know ovens can be tricky.  Mine had to go a wee bit longer - maybe 5-10 minutes.  Likely due to the heat loss resulting from me having to rotate the bread every 10-15 minutes to keep the back part from burning...

To make this even more boat-friendly - especially in out of the way places where you can't get fresh, I would use dry milk (reconstituted) and eggs (also reconstituted).  Notice all the other ingredients I used were dried and easily stored on a boat. 

I'm not currently eating dairy, but I'm sure I'll be feeling froggy one day and add some sharp cheddar and red peppers for pimento cheese bread.  It's just a matter of time...!