thayirsaadham

Hey all,

How you doing? (To be read in a tone similar to the one used by Joey in Friends). By the way, how many of you have watched Friends again and again and again? I know 99% of the dialogues by now and I am working on getting it upto a 100%. Wish me luck

I know I have been late in posting this. I really wanted to post this long back - just did not get the time. I joined a swimming class at the gym. So if any of you see a person wearing senthil trousers (I am sorry but I cannot explain that to the non-tamizh audience ) trying haaaaaard to stay afloat, please say a hi and send some prayers my way. I went to the gym today morning to practice and I was doing fine upto a depth of 6 feet. As soon as I realized I was swimming in waters with a depth of more than 6 feet, what did I do? I did the exact opposite of what I was supposed to do. I panicked! Instead of continuing to swim, I completely stopped moving my legs and sank like a bag of potatoes. Drank a lot of water and came back up sputtering and coughing. Not a pretty sight!

On to today’s recipe, I have been seeing a lot of cake and quick bread recipes with zucchini in them. I am sure a lot of you had the same question as me - a vegetable in a cake? I know there are carrot cakes. But somehow, zucchini seems a lttle weird. I finally decided to try one. I wanted to go for a plain zucchini bread. But I chickened out and made a chocolate version hoping it would mask the taste of the zucchini. Maybe I will try a plain version the next time. The basic recipe is from ClosetCooking. I modified it a little bit using the ingredients available in my pantry.

Ingredients

1. All purpose flour - 1 cup
2. Whole wheat flour - 1 1/4 cups
3. Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
4. Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
5. Cocoa powder - 1/4 cup (I used Hersheys unsweetened chocolate powder)
6. Cinnamon - 1 tsp ( I added 2 tsp because I love cinnamon)
7. Grated zucchini - 1.5 cups
8. Brown sugar - 3/4 cup
9. Honey - 1/4 cup
10. Oil - 1/4 cup
11. Vanilla yogurt - 3/4 cup (I used low fat)
12. Vanilla extract - 1 tsp
13. Egg whites - 2 (lightly beaten)
14. Walnuts - 1/2 cup (cut into little pieces)
15. Chocolate chips - 1/2 cup

Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F
2. Mix the dry ingrdients (1 to 6) together.
3. Mix the wet ingredients (7 to 13) together.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.
5. Fold in the nuts and chocolate chips. You can also omit the chocolate chips but please don’t. Once they melt in the oven, they give such a yummy taste and awesome texture to the bread.
6. Pour the batter into a greased 9X5 inch loaf pan.
7. Let it bake for 45-50 minutes. (I checked mine after 35 minutes and kept an eye on the bread.) Check for doneness and remove the bread from the oven.
8. Let it cool on the pan for 10 minutes.
9. After 10 minutes, remove the bread from the pan and let it cool on the wire rack.
10. Once it is completely cooled, slice and eat or store it in the refrigerator.

This bread is not too sweet. That is the way I like it. But if you want it to be sweeter, increase the sugar or the honey. Entirely upto you.

This bread tasted much better the next day. I read somewhere that whole grain breads taste better when you leave them overnight. Is that true? I popped it in the refrigerator and when I wanted to eat it, I let it sit on the counter for 15-20 minutes and zapped it in the microwave for around 15 seconds. Good to go

Yup! Finally, I baked my first bread. I have baked brownies and cakes before. But this was the first bread with yeast

Baking a good bread improves the mood a lot… or it could be because of the weather in Seattle last weekend. It was GORGEOUS! I went to the Green lake park in Seattle (Got stuck in horrible traffic on the way. But nothing could have made me stay indoors that day) . Everyone was outside with their kids and dogs. It was so damn nice to see so many happy faces

Before I start the recipe, many thanks to Varsha and AnuDivya for clearing my really stupid questions .

I tried once before and the yeast did not froth at all. As expected, the end result was a spectacular disaster. I threw it out. Later, I learnt that the water was too hot and it killed the yeast. This time too, the yeast did not froth in the beginning. I almost gave up. Then I tried warming the water for another 20 seconds. That helped and the yeast became all frothy. It was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. Actually, when the dough doubled, that was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen - apart from Surya in vaaranam aayiram .

Anyways, let me stop waxing eloquent and take you to the recipe. Very simple one for all the expert bakers out there. This is for beginners like me

Ingredients

1. 2.5 cups bread flour (I used King Arthur)
2. 1 packet yeast (I used fleischmann active dry yeast)
3. salt - 1 tsp
4. sugar - 2 tsp
5. honey - 1/8 cup (1/8 cup = 4tbsp)
6. olive oil - 1/8 cup
7. milk - 1/4 cup
8. water - 1/4 cup

Recipe
1. Warm the water for around 20 seconds in the microwave.
2. Add the yeast and sugar to it. Set aside to froth. This will take around 10-15 minutes.
3. Now, add salt, honey, oil and milk to the yeast mixture and combine everything in a big bowl.
4. Add the flour to this and mix with a spatula till you get a sticky mass. Now, its time to knead
5. Knead the bread till it becomes smooth. Depending on your arm strength, this takes anywhere from 8-20 minutes. (I was very slow and it took me around 25 minutes. I was so paranoid about this step that I searched online for kneading tips. I found a nice video and followed it. I have the link in the notes section at the end. It also tells you how to find out if your dough has been kneaded enough)
6. Take a large oiled bowl and place the dough inside it and flip so that the dough gets coated with oil.
7. Cover this with a damp cloth or a thin plastic wrap and let it sit in a warm place till the dough doubles. This should take around 1-2 hrs.(I put mine in the oven with the light on and I left it for around 3 hours. I was supposed to take it out after an hour. But I went out and kind of forgot! )
8. Take the dough (aaah… looks beautiful… tough competition Surya) and punch it down to release the air bubbles.
9. Place parchment paper in a loaf pan and shape the dough and place it inside the pan.
10. Place it back in the oven. Let it rise till the dough comes to about an inch over the pan. This should take around an hour.
11. Now, take the dough out of the oven.
12. Preheat the oven to 350F.
13. Place the dough. Let it bake for around 35-40 minutes. It is done when it sounds hollow when you tap it.
14. Tada! We are done. Not quite… Take it out of the oven. Let it cool and then cut a slice. Slather some Nutella on the slice. Take a bite and slip sloooooowly into heaven

Notes

1. I microwaved the water for 20 seconds first. The yeast did not froth that well. So I again microwaved for 20 more seconds. That seemed to work. It depends on the power of your microwave. If the yeast doesn’t froth up at all, it has probably expired.
2. This is the video that I watched to learn how to knead the dough - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWj8oHMPFm0
3. Adding sugar is optional. I read somewhere that sugar helps in activating the yeast. So I used that. You can also skip it.

I did not add anything to the bread like herbs, cheese, nuts, etc. Was too scared to experiment this time. I did add some sunflower seeds on top of the dough. Will definitely try something with flavour the next time.