Harper's Kitchen: Pear Bread! (And quick bread in general)

[kniteracy]

Harper's Kitchen: Pear Bread! (And quick bread in general)

A few weeks ago, tattercoats and her kids spent a day here while vaurien did rehearsal-y things with the nMC. While she was here, I made pear bread since we had some pears and they go well in bread.

As has frequently happened with this bread, it didn't cook completely and ended up being completely undone in the middle while managing to taste terrific nonetheless. So In sort of a "my problem and how I solve it" way, here's the first recipe (lurking playfully behind the cut tag).


Vermont Pear Bread

INGREDIENTS

9 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 cup buttermilk (I substitute sour cream when buttermilk isn't available)
1 cup coarsely chopped pears (or pureed for a smoother texture)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup chopped walnuts (I usually omit these)

Oven should be preheated to 350F, gas mark 4, 180C

Cream butter until light. Slowly add sugar, beating constantly. Add the eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.

Combine dry ingredients thoroughly. Add them to the egg mixture alternately with the buttermilk. Fold in the pears and vanilla. Pour into two lightly greased 4 1/2 X 8 1/2 inch loaf pans or one large tube pan.

Bake for 35-40 minutes (Loaf pans) or 1 hour (tube pan). Cool to room temperature and chill for several hours. Slice and serve with apple (or pear) butter.

Now, the truth is, the above recipe makes a yummy batter, but I almost never get it to come out right in baking. It doesn't cook all the way through in the time suggested, and if you cook it longer, the top burns and the inside doesn't get done. If anyone has a recommendation for how to alter the cooking of this recipe so that it works, I would love to hear it! What I usually do, when I'm not trying to show off with this ubertasty batter, is just add pears to my regular quick bread recipe below-- but here's the usual weird cooking-geek analysis behind what I do with quick breads.


All about quick breads

Quick breads, in a different way from breads made with yeast, are really adaptable things. You can do nearly anything with a quick bread, from the banana or peanut butter and jelly bread I've made for general snacking, to the holiday bread I took to oreouk's house for New Year's Eve.

Like all bread formulas, quick breads have some ingredients that aren't going to change: you need flour, sugar, salt, liquid of some kind, and a leavening agent. The major difference between a quick bread and a yeasted bread is that quick breads (work with me here) do not use yeast as their leavening agent. Instead, they use the magic of baking powder. See, baking powder does the same thing that yeast does: it creates carbon dioxide. Only it works much faster than yeast.

Now, I could take you through the history of leavening agents if you liked, from hartshorn straight up through double-action baking powder, but ih. Most of you are going to be using double-acting baking powder, unless you're deeply experimental or interested in historical cooking (hint: you'll find a hartshorn-like leavening agent sometimes called 'baker's ammonia'). Many recipes use a combination of baking powder and bicarbonate of soda (baking soda), and I'll try to put equivalents in brackets when I talk about specific ingredients that have different names in different countries.


Things to know about baking powder
Baking powder doesn't last forever, so if you recently inherited everything in your granny's kitchen, you might want to test the baking powder by putting a little bit into a cup of hot water. It should fizz and bubble. If it doesn't do that, go out and get yourself some more baking powder-- or make your own (see below).

Things that are leavened with baking powder need to be put into the oven pretty quickly after having been mixed up. This is not as big a problem with double-acting baking powder as with the homemade single-acting baking powder we'll talk about in a second, but it is a good thing to know. The reason double-acting baking powder is called double-acting is that it uses two acids to react to the bicarbonate of soda in baking powder: one starts fizzing when it gets wet (like cream of tartar would), and the other doesn't start working until it gets hot. Still, it's good practice to get things leavened with baking powder into the oven quickly, so you get the benefit of both fizzing acids to make your quick bread rise.


How to make baking powder
You can make single-acting baking powder (which begins fizzing and creating carbon dioxide as soon as it's wet) by mixing two parts cream of tartar to one part baking soda. The good thing about this is, if you don't bake a lot, bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar have an indefinite shelf life on their own, but as mentioned above, baking powder doesn't last forever. I keep both things on hand, just in case. To make the equivalent of 1 teaspoon of double-acting baking powder, mix 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar with 1/4 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda). This works fine, but it only has the single leavening power, so get whatever you're baking into the oven right away.


What's the difference between bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) and baking powder?

Bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) can be a leavening agent on its own if there's an ingredient in the quick bread recipe (like buttermilk, for example) that is acidic and can take the place of the acid in the baking powder.

But you don't have to use bicarbonate of soda, even when there's something acidic present. Baking powder will still leaven even when there's extra acid, although the taste of the acidic ingredient will be a little more pronounced. For those of you who are into texture, baking powder generally gives things a smoother texture than bicarbonate of soda, which creates a more coarse texture. Flavours vary, but here's a list of things you can use that will react with 1/2 a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda and replace 2 teaspoons of baking powder

• 1 cup sour milk
  
• 1 cup sweet milk soured with a tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice
  
• 1 cup sour cream
  
• 1 cup yogurt
  
• 1 cup fruit or vegetable sauces or juice
  
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
  
• 3/4 cup honey
  
• 3/4 cup molasses
  
• 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice
  

Anatomy of a quick bread
You can break quick bread ingredients down into three categories: structural ingredients, decorative ingredients, and leavening agents (which we've already talked to death above).

Structural ingredients include flour, a liquid, and eggs.
Decorative ingredients are things like non-wheat flours or grains, sugars, fats (butter, shortening, oil), optional extras like raisins, nuts, chocolate chips, cheese, fruit, etc.

Structural ingredients form the foundation of the bread and give it shape. Decorative ingredients give bread taste and personality, but they also weigh it down. The fewer decorative ingredients a quick bread has, the less leavening agent it needs.


How much leavening agent do you need?
How much leavening agent to use is measured against what kinds of structural and decorative ingredients you're using. How many cups of flour does your recipe call for? (UK people: a cup of flour is about 250ml or 225g) You want at least one teaspoon of baking powder per cup. If your recipe wants a cup or more of decorative ingredients, add 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder per cup of flour. So if you need 3 cups of flour and a cup of raisins, you need 3 teaspoons plus 1/2 teaspoon for each cup of flour because of the raisins: 4 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder. Easy, right? :)


Different kinds of quick breads
Quick breads are just about anything from scones and biscuits, which are made from doughs (American-style biscuits, not UK-style) right up to quick breads from batters, like the pear bread above. They can be sweet or savoury, and all of them can be leavened in different ways, depending on what kind of taste and texture you like. There's nothing wrong with thinking of your kitchen as an experimental laboratory, particularly when you're baking, since baking is just a fun and tasty chemistry experiment, anyway.


Here's my basic quick bread recipe. It can be changed and modified any way you wish. When I get tired of trying to make the extra-tasty pear bread batter recipe above to work, I use this recipe and add a cup of pears to it. Still tastes great!


Harper's basic quick bread recipe

INGREDIENTS

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4-1/2 cup vegetable oil or melted butter
3/4-1 cup brown sugar (or any kind of sugar)
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla or other extract

Oven should be preheated to 350F, gas mark 4, 180C

Mix the flours, baking powder, soda and salt together in a medium-sized bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the oil, sugar and eggs togehter for 1 or 2 minutes until you've incorporated as much air as you can. Blend in the milk and vanilla.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and stir just enough to blend. This will make a very wet batter. Pour into a lightly greased, 9x5-inch loaf pan.

Bake for about an hour or until the top of the loaf springs back when you press it with your fingertips. Let the loaf cool on a rack for 10 to 15 minutes before turning it out of the pan.

As you add decorative ingredients, you may want to omit some or all of the milk. Fruit, for example, will make a recipe more liquid-y, so omit the milk altogether and then add milk when you're done mixing all the other ingredients together to make the batter the consistency you want.

Just wait 'til I get started talking about yeast! ;)

Comments

[msminlr.livejournal.com]

How deep in the loaf pans does the batter get after it's poured in?
My first instinct would be to try using three loaf pans instead of two, in hopes that a shallower batter-puddle would cook more thoroughly.

[telynor.livejournal.com]

It doesn' get very deep, but that's a good idea and an excuse to buy more nice loaf tins (I have two good ones and two oogy ones).

[plaid-dragon.livejournal.com]

My usual solution when that happens with cakes is to reduce the oven temperature and extend the cooking time. Certainly with cakes that means that the middle does cook but without the outside burning. There's probably a good physicsy reason to do with convection and so on, but I'm not going to try to give it! :-) I don't know if that will work with bread in the same way.

Baking powder

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

I have an idea I was told once that American ready-mixed baking powder is somehow different from ours. I can't remember anything useful like whether it's stronger or weaker, of course (never use the stuff myself), but ISTR there's a difference, and it could be worth checking before using American recipes. As if converting "cups" to units the ingredients are sold in wasn't bad enough (sigh).

Re: Baking powder

[telynor.livejournal.com]

I did check; the ingredients seem to be the same. In any case, making baking powder from bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar will yield the same results, regardless.

*chuckle*

From my point of view, adding extra step of weighing everything in order to follow a UK recipe is incredibly tedious, but I think we're all used to what we grew up with. I'm just glad I brought good measuring utensils with me when I moved here. :)

[telynor.livejournal.com]

Another good idea. Maybe I'll try it today. :)

[aunty_marion]

That was my first thought too. Use a wider and/or shallower pan. A cake tin would probably work, since (having sampled this bread) it comes out more like a cake. Instead of a normal loaf tin, perhaps an 8-inch square cake tin?

[folkmew.livejournal.com]

Wow! I had no idea that baking soda was so fascinating!!

hee. Sounds incredibly yummy. (I wonder why it is "Vermont"?)

[telynor.livejournal.com]

It's "Vermont" because it's a recipe from The Governor's Inn. It's from The King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook, so lots of the recipes in the book are New England recipes.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

That was the thought I had. Conduction, not convection: the longer time means that the heat has longer to get through the mixture, the lower temperature means that it doesn't burn the outside. The reverse is used for things where the inside wants to stay cool, like Baked Alaska (ice cream in the middle, meringue on the outside, and very risky to make without a very hot oven) and rare steaks.

What the longer time would do to the action of the leavening, however, I don't know...

[keristor.livejournal.com]

What do you mean by "all-purpose flour"? White flour without baking soda (what we call 'plain' flour)?

What you describe as Quick Bread sounds like what I know as "soda bread", although the latter generally uses just baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) rather than baking powder, and is very common in Southern Ireland (and is delicious).

I like the sound of the pear bread...

Ooh, do you have a UK way to do American biscuits? I haven't had those for years...

[folkmew.livejournal.com]

Ah! That makes sense since King Arthur's is in Norwhich. I've always wanted to go there, I hear it's a fun place with lots of cool baking stuff to spend money on. Also they donate studio space for Vermont Public Radio. :-)

Re: Baking powder

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

yes, I generally mix my own, hence my vagueness on the ready-made stuff.

I can understand using "three cups of flour" is easy enough, it's working out how much to buy that gets me. You want to make ten loaves, at 2.5 cups each - so how many 1 lb bags do you buy?

If the recipe says to use 8oz, I know to tip half a bag in. Without scales. Maybe I should be more precise, but I tend to the medieval methods of "some", "enough", and "as much as thou may get".

Re: Baking powder

[aunty_marion]

That sounds like our family recipe for cheese straws, dating from the day my younger sister was making them, with constant shouts upstairs to Mum (who was doing something up there, not in the kitchen) as to how much this and how much that.

The answer to "how much cheese?" is absolutely precise and exact.

"A dirty great handful!"

Re: Baking powder

[keristor.livejournal.com]

8oz to a cup is the general rule, whether it's flour, sugar or liquids (fluid ounces in that case). I wish we had sticks of butter, though, they are really handy for cooking (a stick is 4oz, so very easy to divide by eye and most have the marks on the wrapping fot ounces anyway).

(Yes, there's a small difference between flour and sugar densities, but I don't measure that accurately anyway when cooking...)

Re: Baking powder

[keristor.livejournal.com]

"At least twice as much as the recipe says" when making scones. Even if it is Caws Lleyn Gogh...

[tibicina.livejournal.com]

All-purpose flour is the middle gluten/protein flour in between cake flour (very low gluten) and bread flour (high gluten). Basically all-purpose flour will /work/ for most any flour-based recipe. Cake flour doesn't work well for bread, bread flour doesn't work well for cake. It has to do with tenderness vrs. chewiness.

Flour /with/ baking soda would be 'self-rising flour' or something like that.

[tibicina.livejournal.com]

What other people have said mostly - reduce temperature and/or make shorter loaves.

Actually, it also looks like something that might be good as muffin-like things, which should also help with cooking all the way through, though I'm not sure how long that would take, so you'd have to watch those and check on them until you figured out the time.

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

lower the temp 25 degrees F and cook it for 5-10 minutes longer. Use a glass baking pan rather than metal. If your oven has 2 racks, put a shallow baking dish full of water on the lower rack, so that your bread gets steamed as well as baked; that way you can cook it longer without it getting so dry and burnt on top.
I have made many quick breads over the years, and some are awful until one fools around with the recipe quite a bit; those are the fool-arounds that work most often. Pumpkin bread with fresh-cooked pumpkin is my favorite, closely followed by caramel-apple bread. (Chopped apples in the batter, and a sprinkling of brown sugar and unsalted butter on the top of the loaf before baking, so it melts to a gooey mess.)

Re: Baking powder

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

That's how I handle cheese, too.
Also how I handle cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg.
(Cloves, mace and cardamom I stay close to the recipe; allspice varies all over the map. Cardomom I'd use more of if it weren't so damn expensive.)
Oh, and nuts. Especially walnuts. Always add twice as many walnuts as the recipe says.

Re: Baking powder

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

The major difference is that many UK/European brands are calcium-based whereas the American brands are mostly sodium-based. I buy imported baking powder because I'm on a low-sodium diet. If Harper has baking powder that's the same as she got in the USA, then she's the exception, either when she was here or now that she's there.

How much?

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Spices I sniff, then decide. Strengths vary enormously, and you don't know if the original recipe assumed freshly ground, or the end of a packet that's a year out of date. And what I've got to use might be either, too!

[bercilakslady.livejournal.com]

So when I come up next, we'll go visit. :)