2015 Bread Baking Challenge

chocolate stout bread

Last year (2014) around Christmastime I made cranberry banana bread for my parents. They loved it, and I was surprised at how easy it was to make. Because I had found the recipe (by way of Pinterest) on a Food Network article featuring - get this - FIFTY different sweet and savory quick breads, I decided to challenge myself to see how many I could make in 2015 and then at the end of the year blog about it. Well, here we are, and here's how it went. Unfortunately I forgot to get pictures of all of them, and Blogger's picture and layout options are terrible, so I've just posted a picture of one.

The first one I tried my had at, in honor of St. Patrick's Day was the chocolate stout bread pictured at left, featuring Guinness of course. As you can see in the picture,  all the breads tended to split down the top, but other than that it turned out delicious - moist, with just the right amount of richness from both cocoa powder and chocolate chips.

My next endeavor was the carrot coconut bread - kind of like a carrot cake but a little healthier - perhaps.

                                                                                                                    

Then I attempted the lemon-soaked bread. Although it came out a bit squashed and  crumbly on top, what it lacked in looks it made up for in taste - tart but not too tart. And as a final summer treat, I made the strawberry walnut bread. 

In the fall I made both the pumpkin bread and the baked apple bread (with rum-soaked raisins). So six breads over the course of the year, and I may have made a chocolate chip banana bread and/or the cranberry upside-down bread at some point (I honestly don't remember). Out of 50 it doesn't seem that many, but I will continue to experiment. I know I want to try the spiced apple-walnut and the cinnamon bun, among the sweet breads. And probably at least one of the savory breads. 

2016 has plenty of baking adventures in store!