Well, after several months of experimentation and taste-testing, my family's favorite snack food is good to go! I started with a basic recipe from Good Housekeeping, combined some tips from Fannie Farmer & internet research, added ingredients that my family likes, and ended up with a well rounded and pretty healthy Quick Bread. Husband loves it, baby loves it, and dog simply can't get enough of it. One of the biggest differences with my recipe is that I more than double the amount of oats in a typical oatmeal bread which of course means I also need to offset the liquid ingredients. I've tried a lot of liquid combinations (more butter, less butter/more applesauce, the addition of oil or shortening), but this seems to get it just right. I use as many organic ingredients as I can for this recipe. Sylvie's Bird Bread is open to interpretation, so if you come up with a good variation, post it here please!
BREAD INGREDIENTS
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups whole-wheat white flour (like King Arthur's)
2 1/4 cups old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/4 stick unsalted butter (I use "European Style"), room temp
3 large extra ripe bananas (sometimes I do 4)
1/2 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 cup-ish of cranberries, dried or fresh (if you use Craisins, know you are sweetening the recipe)
3 tablespoons applesauce (if I'm out of applesauce I've been known to use pear babyfood)
TOPPING INGREDIENTS
3 tablespoons each of:
Oats
Brown sugar
Whole-wheat white flour
Unsalted butter
BREAD PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9" by 5" loaf pan.
In a medium bowl mash bananas and butter together with a potato masher until they are a marble-y mix. These two ingredients prepare each other for deliciousness on a chemical level. Set aside. In large bowl, mix baking powder, baking soda, salt, flour, oats, and brown sugar until blended. Stir in milk, vanilla extract, eggs, applesauce, butter/banana mixture and cranberries (in the photo you may see that I also added a handful of fresh blueberries last time - it is bird bread, so scavenge away!) Beat with a mixer just until you think the eggs are blended, maybe 30 seconds. Spoon batter into pan.
TOPPING PREPARATION
In the same bowl you mixed your bananas in (save on dishes, right?) mix 3 tablespoons flour, 3 tablespoons oats, 3 tablespoons brown sugar, and 3 tablespoons margarine or butter until blended. it's easiest to mix by hand to get the ingredients all hunky-dory with each other. Sprinkle the crumb topping evenly over batter. Oh yeah!
4. Bake bread 50-60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack 10 minutes; remove from pan and finish cooling on wire rack.
Enjoy!!!
