Baking: Good for the Soul, Bad for the Waistline

This is here for no other reason than it is a pretty egg (& I used it in the bread).

I love to bake.  More accurately, I love to eat stuff I’ve baked. And that, my friends, is why I bake very rarely. But if I want to become a Domestic Goddess, I need to learn how to balance my love of eating delicious things and my love of appearing relatively fit (not to mention my continuing efforts to look fitter).

One part of this effort involves taking traditional recipes and “healthifying” them.  This would be a lot easier if I’d paid attention to the at-the-time-boring food science part of the cooking class I took in high school.  Luckily, there’s this wonderful thing called “the Internet,” which yielded this extremely helpful article from Mahalo.  In short, it tells you what various ingredients do, when you can sub them and when you really shouldn’t, and what you can use in their place.

So, with that article, I set out on an adventure I call, “Ditty Learns How to Make Whole Wheat Tomato Basil Bread.”  Now, one thing that’s helpful to know is that whole wheat flour doesn’t act like white flour.  Most baking recipes will tell you to go half and half OR ELSE.  But me?  I laugh in the face of danger.  And then when the recipe says “knead 10 times,” I go, “Um, have you seen the dough I’m working with?”  And then all those people who insisted on half white flour smirk smugly.  Some even dare to say, “I told you so.”  And I stare back defiantly, hands covered in sticky dough, and say, “Screw you and your kneading and your white flour!  I shall put this dough into loaf pans instead, and it will be GLORIOUS!”

And you know what?  It was.

WHOLE WHEAT TOMATO BASIL BREAD
(aka, Eff the Naysayers Bread)

Ingredients
2.5 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1 1/2 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
1/2 cup freshly chopped basil
1/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained, chopped
1 cup Greek yogurt (I used two 5.3-oz. containers of Oikos 0% plain)
1 egg
1/3 cup water (or enough to help dough come together)

Directions

1. In medium bowl, combine flour, parmesan, baking soda, salt & basil. Mix well.
2. Add yogurt, egg, tomatoes and water. Stir (a wooden spoon works well) ’til just moistened.
3. Turn onto floured surface and shape into two loaves.  Place in PAM’d loaf pans.
4. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit 30-35 minutes until lightly browned.  Remove from sheet and let cool completely.

Victory!

For anyone keeping track, the total calories in both loaves was about 1400 calories.  I sliced mine into 8 pieces each, which came out to 88 calories a slice.  Once it’s cooled, store it in an airtight container or a ziplock bag to keep it fresh for a few days.  (Or leave a couple of slices out, with which to make Panzanella — stay tuned for the recipe!)

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