Anna Thomas Bates Special to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Published 7:00 AM EST Nov 7, 2019
Quick bread is officially defined as any bread leavened with something other than yeast. Sometimes it is closer to a muffin, others times a cake. Sometimes it takes a delightfully savory twist.
Autumn is the perfect season to grab a bowl, a whisk and get that oven heated. Batter takes minutes to heat up, but sometimes almost an hour to bake. That’s just enough time to tuck up your feet and read a few chapters in your favorite book, as the aroma of pumpkin, chocolate or thyme and apples fills your kitchen.
As simple as quick bread is to make, it is also versatile in how it is enjoyed — as an accompaniment to afternoon tea or coffee, for dessert or maybe even for breakfast. And it's a great addition to a Thanksgiving or December holiday menu.
Here in Wisconsin, there is a cornucopia of local ingredients to amp up the flavor of seasonal quick breads. Tawny pears, crisp apples, crunchy hazelnuts, sweet pumpkin and maple are perfect fall flavors.
Even better, these breads can be customized to palate or pantry. Try dried cranberries or cherries, maybe sunflower seeds or hickory nuts. Make it hyper-local by seeking Wisconsin-grown and -ground flour, which is getting easier and easier to find (try Meadowlark Organics or Lonesome Stone Milling.
Monica O’Connell, baker and owner of Curtis and Cake in Fort Atkinson, specializes in celebration cakes but has a fondness for quick bread. She follows her usual formula, which is to develop a solid foundation recipe and then use her skills, creativity and access to gorgeous Midwestern ingredients to create her final baked good.
O’Connell recommends embracing a “reliable base recipe, then you have a little bit of space to improvise.”
“I have a good buttermilk base quick bread that I’ve adapted that gives me the space to switch up sweeteners and incorporate seasonal ingredients.”
She advises switching out flours by weight (try rye or spelt), swap liquid sweeteners one for another (honey, maple syrup, etc.) and definitely experiment with add-ins, like a swirl of jam, dried fruit or different nuts.
Two of the featured recipes here are inspired by O’Connell’s ideas and base recipes.
The Chocolate Pear Hazelnut cake is a riff on her favorite chocolate loaf cake from Nigella Lawson, and it uses a favorite flavor combination. The Apple Cheddar Buttermilk Loaf cake uses her base buttermilk loaf cake recipe, with some savory fall tastes.
Quick bread is a favorite of O’Connell’s, and the reason is in the name: “Sometimes you have a taste for something, but you don’t have a lot of time and don’t want a lot of it.” This is why she’s such a fan of Lawson’s Chocolate Loaf Cake. ”It’s the right size, the right amount of time, and I get the essence of what I’m craving.”
Other reasons for making quick bread?
“I like how adaptable they are,” she said. “I’m also that person who around tea time really wants something that’s not too sweet but a little something to pick me up for the rest of the afternoon.” Quick bread nails it every time.
With a good recipe and good ingredients, you can’t go wrong.
Other tips?
Make sure your baking powder or soda are fresh; don’t stir the wet and dry ingredients too much (or the resulting texture may be tough); and pop that bread into the oven as soon as the batter is mixed — those leavening agents begin activating as soon as they get wet.
O’Connell will be releasing her seasonal dessert menu soon, and some of the flavors starring here will be featured. Look for an apple rye cake, a chocolate cake with pear preserves and apple bread pudding.
While she will make seasonal desserts for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, she says she doesn’t get as much business for the first holiday because at Thanksgiving, “You Wisconsinites love your pie.”
You can also find O’Connell the first Saturday in December at the Fort Atkinson Holiday Farmers Market and in Madison on Dec. 14 and 15 at the Good Day Holiday Market. She will have an open house at her commercial kitchen in Fort Atkinson on Dec. 21. At each of these pop-ups you will find her with made-from-scratch marshmallows, cookies, brioche, scones, cake and yes, quick bread.
Wondering about the unique name, Curtis and Cake?
“The cake is obvious,” says O’Connell. The Curtis came from memories of sitting on the stairs as a child, eating a slice of her mom’s favorite rum cake (made from a boxed mix), watching the grown-ups dance at one of her parents’ famous house parties. Soul singer Curtis Mayfield was often on the playlist.
And O’Connell’s talents expand beyond baking for weddings, celebrations and markets. She recently had the opportunity to cook at the James Beard House in New York City. Adrian Lipscombe, Texas native and owner of Uptown Café in La Crosse, gathered a group of black women to cook a meal in early October called Southern Black Traditions. O’Connell was in charge of the dessert portion of the evening.
“It was incredibly meaningful to me because I look to a lot of Southern black women chefs to inform what I do, to tell this Southern story by way of Midwestern ingredients. Working beside the wisdom of these other women was very moving.
“I think often the people who get the biggest platform to tell the story of Southern foodways are not the black women who were the architects of the cuisine.”
Although quick bread was not on the menu, Wisconsin was featured heavily in the ingredients, including wild Wisconsin plum butter in a gooey rum cake, a red velvet cake with Wisconsin cheese in the filling, apple rye cake with Meadowlark Organics flour and Edna Lewis’ recipe for Very Good Chocolate Cake with a hazelnut flour from the American Hazelnut Co. (based in Gays Mills).
RECIPES
This mostly savory loaf is adapted from Ovenly (a New York bakery and a cookbook) whose basic buttermilk loaf is the foundation quick bread recipe used by Monica O’Connell of Curtis and Cake. She tweaks it to her liking, and here we discussed an apple cheddar recipe she has made in the past. I made a few adaptations myself — that’s the life of a quick bread recipe.
Apple Cheddar Buttermilk Quick Bread with Thyme
Recipe tested by Anna Thomas Bates
Makes 1 loaf
- ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
- 1 cup buttermilk
- ¼ cup packed brown sugar
- ¼ cup maple syrup
- 2 eggs, room temperature
- 2 ¼ cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¾ teaspoon dried thyme leaves
- 1 large apple, cored and coarsely grated
- 1 cup grated sharp cheddar
- ½ small onion, grated
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan.
In a large bowl, whisk together butter, buttermilk, brown sugar, maple syrup and eggs. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and thyme. Add dry ingredients to wet and stir until just combined. Fold in grated apple, cheese and onion.
Scrape batter into prepared loaf pan and bake in preheated oven 50 to 60 minutes, until a knife or skewer stuck into the middle comes out clean.
—————
The original chocolate loaf cake is from Nigella Lawson’s “How to Be a Domestic Goddess” (Hyperion, 2002). Food52.com has published it and it is a favorite of Monica O’Connell’s of Curtis and Cake.
However, while it is an undeniably delicious recipe, it is not always gorgeous. For O’Connell, this is part of its charm. She said it sometimes sinks in spots or is lopsided. It definitely overflows the baking pan, and the many reviews on food52.com back up these two points.
My attempt was similar, and it was not pretty. I ended up cutting it like a brownie instead of bread — but it was delicious! I made a few adjustments here, adding pears and salt and substituting coffee for some of the water.
Chocolate Loaf Cake with Pears and Hazelnuts
Recipe tested by Anna Thomas Bates
Makes 1 loaf
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 2/3 cups packed dark brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted
- 1 1/3 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons hot, strongly brewed coffee
- 1 cup boiling water
- 2 small pears, peeled and thickly sliced
- 3 tablespoons chopped hazelnuts
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease and line a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with foil or parchment (don’t skip this step).
In a large bowl, beat together butter, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla. Stir in slightly cooled melted chocolate. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. Add coffee to water. Alternate adding one-fourth of the flour and one-third of the water, stirring gently between additions, beginning and ending with the flour.
Scrape batter into lined loaf pan, only up to an inch from the top (you may have leftover batter). Vertically place the pear slices in the chocolate batter. It’s OK if the tips stick out. Sprinkle hazelnuts over the top.
Place loaf pan on a baking sheet (batter will very likely overflow) to catch the mess. Bake in preheated oven 30 minutes. Reduce oven to 325 degrees and bake an additional 15 minutes (or until batter doesn’t jiggle in the pan when you gently shake it — it took an additional 10 minutes in my oven).
Remove from oven and let cool several hours or overnight before turning out and slicing.
—————
This recipe is lightly adapted from leelalicious.com and makes a dense, lightly sweet loaf that is made into a sweeter dessert with the cream cheese frosting and pepita brittle.
Pumpkin Loaf with Pepita Brittle
Recipe tested by Anna Thomas Bates
Makes 1 loaf
Loaf:
- ¾ cup whole-wheat flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- 1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- ½ cup maple syrup
- 2 eggs
- ¼ cup (½ stick) melted butter or coconut oil
- 1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
Frosting and brittle:
- ¼ cup cream cheese, room temperature
- 1 ½ tablespoons maple syrup
- 2 tablespoons old-fashioned rolled oats
- 3 tablespoons pepitas
- 3 tablespoons sugar
Make bread: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and line a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with foil or parchment.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, spices and salt. In another bowl, whisk together pumpkin puree, maple syrup, eggs and melted butter. Add wet ingredients to dry and fold in the 1 cup oats. Scrape into loaf pan and bake in preheated oven 45 to 55 minutes, until a knife or skewer stuck into the middle comes out clean. Let loaf cool 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and let it cool completely.
Make frosting by whipping cream cheese and maple syrup together.
Make brittle by lightly toasting oats and pepitas in a dry skillet 2 to 3 minutes, until fragrant. Lightly grease a plate or baking dish.
Add sugar to a saucepan in an even layer and cook over medium-high heat without stirring. When sugar begins to melt, turn heat down to medium-low. When mostly melted, swirl pan to incorporate unmelted sugar. As soon as sugar is a deep golden color, remove from heat, stir in toasted oats and seeds and scrape all onto greased dish, quickly flattening a bit. Let cool completely and break into pieces.
Frost cooled loaf and sprinkle brittle over the top, pressing lightly to adhere. Store in refrigerator.
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