Day 157: Schiacciata Con Zibibbo (Flatbread with Raisins)

This is some incredible bread. I've made schiacciata before, which is a lot like focaccia, but it was never on this level. You start this bread by taking half a cup of olive oil and add a ton of fresh rosemary to it, bring it to a boil, and then let it simmer for a bit. Half of this goes into the bread and the other half goes on top of it right before it goes into the oven. The raisins are kneaded into the dough so they don't get destroyed by the mixer, but it was hard to get them evenly distributed throughout the bread. Once the dough is kneaded, you spread it out in a cookie sheet, pour the olive oil and rosemary onto it and spread that out, then sprinkle sugar onto the bread. The sugar dissolves into the oil and then bakes into the bread, leaving just the infused sugar. I was thinking this was just a savory bread but didn't realize it was loaded with sugar. It gives it such a great contrast that I wasn't expecting.

Day 156: Three Herb Bread

This was originally called Six Herb Bread, but I just used a couple of the herbs I had to make this Three Herb Bread. The actual bread is pretty standard, but obviously, it's the herbs that help this bread stand out. I put in some fresh basil, oregano, and dillweed into this bread, and you can taste each herb in every bite. The original plan was to use this bread to make pizza grilled cheese, so I needed something with a lot of flavor. This fit the bill exactly, and was incredibly easy to make. I'll report back on how the pizza grilled cheese turn out! 

Day 155: Orange-Nut Bread

There are so many orange breads in the Fruit and Nut Breads section that it's crazy. This one is probably the most standard of all of them, but that doesn't mean it's the worst. For the nuts in this bread I decided to go with some pecans and mix it up. All the stuff on the top is actually an orange juice-sugar glaze that I spread on the bread about 10 minutes before it was done baking. This bread has a ton of flavor and texture packed into every bite and I'm really happy with how it turned out. I'm obviously still hopping around the different bread sections, and there's no end in sight! They're all too good and there's just too many of them! 

Day 154: Savory Bread

So far, this might be the most generic name for a bread yet, but that doesn't mean it's not delicious. This is a pretty standard bread except for the fact that an herb butter is spread over the dough before it was rolled up and thrown in the oven. This butter was loaded with oregano, garlic, onion, black pepper, and a hint of Tabasco sauce for some spice. The swirl wasn't very prevalent in the bread, but the flavor sure was. This one turned out delicious, and I'm sure it'll make some incredible toast and/or sandwiches. The name is, ironically, still very bland, but I'm happy with how this one turned out.  

Day 153: Vel's Date Bread

I don't think I've ever eaten dates by themselves, they've always been wrapped or stuffed, and this is just another thing on the list. This bread was a lot better than what I was expecting. The dates add a lot of moisture and texture to the bread, while also looking great next to the walnuts. This bread isn't too sweet, and it is very chewy. For a bread that I didn't think I would enjoy a whole lot, I'm really loving it. I always forget how delicious dates are in everything, and how much I need to start using them more. 

Day 152: Honey-Pineapple Bread

This bread got a little crispy, but even if it didn't, I think it would still be disappointing. On paper, this bread sounds really good: a bread loaded with walnuts, honey, and pineapple? Yes please. What this came out as though was just a pretty bland bread. I didn't taste any honey or pineapple in the bread, and the walnuts barely made a difference. I'm not sure what happened, and what could have made this bread better, but oh well, not every bread can be a winner. 

Day 151: Zucchini-Basil Muffins

I love zucchini, basil, and muffins, so of course when I saw these I had to make them. I think it's much better to skip around with all of these breads than to just make a ton of sweet batter fruit breads in a row and then make a ton of savory breads like these. Mixing it up makes them all seem much better over all because I'm not getting burned out by similar breads. These amazing little muffins are made chock full of fresh basil and zucchini and then sprinkled with Parmesan cheese before they got put into the oven. They're beyond delicious and I'm glad I decided to make them. Its going to be really hard not to eat all of them as soon I am done writing this, but I'm glad they turned out so well.

Day 150: Cherry-Pecan Bread

Another great fruit quick bread. You usually don't see a lot of cherry flavored quick breads of muffins, so I was surprised when I saw this recipe. It uses maraschino cherries instead of fresh cherries, but that's because they're a lot sweeter. You also use a little bit of the liquid from the cherries, and a splash of orange juice for flavor. Before it went into the oven the batter was a bright pink, and I was sad to see it turn brown in the oven. The pecans in the loaf add a bit of texture and some great flavor. I think this is the first bread to use pecans instead of walnuts, and I'm okay with that. While this one wasn't as good as the loyalist bread, it's still a pretty solid quick bread.

Day 149: Selkirk Bannock

Bannocks are a type of flatbread that is usually cut into wedges. These wedges are typically known as scones, and they're always delicious. This bannock is from Scotland, so of course it is loaded with raisins and butter. It tastes delicious, but didn't turn out exactly how I wanted it to. It was supposed to rise a bit, and flesh out the cake pan it was baked in, but it only rose a little and was more on the dense side. The raisins helped out a ton in every way though. They added taste, texture, and some moistness to every bite. I think there are more bannocks peppered throughout the book, so I'm sure I'll bake more and keep comparing them.  

Day 148: Loyalist Bread

This bread is basically a giant crispy blueberry walnut muffin, and it is awesome. The story behind this is that after the British fled the US to Canada, one of the few things they could take were their recipes, and this was one of them. It's a pretty basic recipe until you add all of the fresh blueberries and then it gets knocked into the next gear. This loaf of bread disappeared pretty quickly, it was just too delicious. I'm down for anything with blueberries in it, and muffins are always king. I'm still skipping around, obviously, and probably won't stop for a while.