Ann Hartley
Just this summer I came to realize that kombucha (the fermented beverage I rave about for it’s health benefits, flavor, and frugality) is a wonderful dough/batter enhancer for quick breads. If you remember vinegar and baking soda experiments from elementary school you can imagine how kombucha starter liquid would react with baking soda due to its similarity to vinegar (but without the vinegar taste or smell). It puts fizz in the dough!
I do not have the patience of a tadpole, so if I want to eat delicious healthy baked goods I have to plan ahead and make-ahead wherever possible. I put dry ingredients in mason jars as you see in my top photo. The flour I used for these make-ahead mixes includes Premium Gold’s “Gluten Free Flax & Ancient Grains All-Purpose Flour” which is made from brown rice, flaxseed, quinoa, buckwheat, and amaranth. These are exactly the same things I used to have to buy separately and grind up myself to add by hand to make healthy baked goods, so this product saves me a lot of time. My mix also includes sprouted spelt (or wheat, kamut, or rye) so it is not gluten-free.
I used to put baking soda in with the dry ingredients, but I am learning that with kombucha bread it works better when mixed fresh with the liquids and that using kombucha as an additional leavening agent makes quick breads completely idiot-proof. That means that if I stick with the basic chemistry, I can use my make-ahead mix to create portion-controlled batches of just about any kind of quick bread in just a few minutes.
Today I used up some fresh blueberries that were not sweet enough to eat out of hand, and a little bit of left over Naked Juice Company’s Green Machine (which has kale, spinach, wheatgrass, seaweed, and broccoli in addition to 5 fruits) . This I added to the baking soda and a generous splash of kombucha. Quick, while it bubbled up like a volcano, I stirred all this into the flour mix. Voila, blueberry bar batter! All that was left to do was sprinkle cinnamon sugar over the top, drizzle it with maple syrup, roll it in oil to form a log, slice it into bars and bake. Even I was a bit skeptical about this process, but the final result was not green at all, and did not taste a bit like veggies. In fact, I plan to try putting Green Machine in my next batch of chocolate chunk cookies. Note that a little baking soda goes a long ways, so too much will be noticeable.
These days I am usually cooking for just one or two, so my oven of choice is Gourmia’s 10-in-1 Multifunction Robotic Cooker which got bad reviews when some test bakers tried to make cookies in one without elevating them. Duhh, that is sort of like putting your steak right on charcoal instead of using the grill. I admit the directions that came with the unit were a bit lacking. Anyway, it has a preset that works perfectly for this recipe, so all I do is put the food in the cooker on top of an inverted silicon baking pan, select “grill” and push the start button. Gotta love technology!
This is great. We never have time to bake. We always buy ready-to-eat bread and cookies.
Ready to eat bread is affordable and convenient, so that is what most people eat.
Well, for your information, bakeries are mushrooming in our place. So you don’t have to worry about baking something to eat. Just visit them select your bread, pastry, or anything to eat.
If I visit your country I will certainly do that, thank you.
Some great ideas! I have some amaranth, I’ll try grinding it and adding it to my flours.Thank you for the inspiration! The bars look delicious too.
I try not to overdo on the sugar in this recipe, but I have found that turbinado sugar is the best one to mix with cinnamon as it has a bit of crunch even after it has been drizzled with maple syrup.
Yummy, this is some good health tips.
I am eating a blueberry bar just now. Last time I made them with pineapple instead, and cherry before that.
OK fine, make me salivate with desire. LOL. enjoy then. going back to work now.
I have discovered that the dough will keep in the refrigerator a couple days, so lately I just make a few — portion control, or I would want to eat the whole batch!
Ahhh that’s good. then you can cook anytime you desire. Good idea.
Your husband is very lucky because his wife is good and diligent about cooking.
Thank you Albert, we were married 40 years before he died. He was a veteran of World War II and had spent 5+ years in the military hospital before I met him.
Sorry for your lost, Ann. But you are a stoic woman.
only idiots blame technology for their own shortcomings
When we first moved to where I am now we had to submit an architectural drawing to get permission to remove the range top and oven to reduce power consumption enough to add an outlet for my computer, Alex. When the inspector came out he was angry and turned to my husband and demanded to know “How is your wife going to cook?” Dear late hubby stood up tall and replied “My wife is an executive, she doesn’t have to cook!” Well, I cook every day, but I haven’t used a conventional stove or oven in over 40 years.
I don’t understand why you needed permission to remove a stove, or why the inspector thought he was entitled to an opinion about it…
It is a Byzantine form of ownership called a stock cooperative and the inspector certainly was not entitled to an opinion. He was just a hireling brought in by management to ensure the wiring was up to code. But because residents vote for directors who hire a manager who hires more managers who hire more people ad nauseum, the lower level employees kind of forget who actually owns the place.
sounds stupid. also sounds like a scam
It looks very tasty … I would eagerly ate them ?
The delicious smell is coming from the oven now and telling me to go eat one. I just finished a big mug of leek soup and am ready for a sweet.
Good for you, sounds delicious for sure.
Looking at my photo, my tummy tells me it is time to make more!
Interesting – I do not know how to try it
They are like a hybrid between cookies and muffins, to be eaten out of hand.
It sounds delicious and healthy! Would love to have these as snacks.
I ate them up rather quickly, tzwrites, rflol.