Daring Bakers’ Challenge: Dutch Crunch Bread!

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avocado, baking, bread, cream cheese, Dutch crunch, sandwich, Tijgerbrood, tomato, vegetarian, yeast

Sara and Erica of Baking JDs were our March 2012 Daring Baker hostesses! Sara & Erica challenged us to make Dutch Crunch bread, a delicious sandwich bread with a unique, crunchy topping. Sara and Erica also challenged us to create a one of a kind sandwich with our bread!

rice flour-based topping

Sara and Erica told us that they chose this challenge because they live in San Francisco where Dutch crunch bread (or Tijgerbrood/Tiger bread) is a popular item in bakeries and sandwich shops. For those of you like me  who hadn’t heard of this type of bread, it’s basically a soft loaf that is topped with a yeasty rice flour mixture right before going into the oven. While baking, the topping cracks and browns, giving it the tiger-like appearance. I think giraffe-like might be more precise.

Breakfast Chalupas!

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avocado, breakfast, brunch, chalupas, cheese, cooking, corn tortillas, easy, Eggland's Best, eggs, green chiles, healthy, migas, onion, recipes, red pepper, salsa, Tex-Mex, tomato

It seems like all sorts of foods are on a constant rollercoaster between good and evil.  Coconut oil is good for you now, but agave syrup is bad news bears?  It’s hard to know who or what to believe, but I feel like if it Mama Nature made it, it’s most likely okay.  And let’s just get this out of the way: please don’t ever tell me that the fat content in avocados is bad.  Hello, GOOD FAT.  (For the record, I am by no means a nutritionist…feel free to dismiss my opinions if they’re not to your liking.)

After many years of being viewed as cholesterol-laden baddies, eggs are now packed with Vitamin D and lower in cholesterol, at least compared to an earlier study.  If you read that article, it’s unknown why, but thought to be related to the hens’ diets.  Speaking of hen diets, I was lucky to score a coupon for Eggland’s Best eggs (as a member of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program), which are the eggs I’ve been buying for the last few months anyway!  They boast having vegetarian-fed hens (wait, do other eggs come from carnivorous hens?!) which produce healthier eggs.  Being a vegetarian myself, I’m down with that.  They taste good, too. 

Vegan Avocado Ice Cream with Mango Sauce

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avocado, booze, easy, frozen, gluten-free, ice cream, lime, mango, raw, recipes, sauce, tequila, vegan

I can be a complete and utter nutter in the kitchen, but it usually turns out well, right?  *crickets*

This is my third sweet (and vegan) avocado experiment, but if it grosses you out, let me remind you about a couple of things.

1. Avocados are fruit.  I mean, look at those big honkin’ pits!

2. They don’t have a very strong flavor.  Most people are probably accustomed to avocados being mashed up with tomatoes, garlic, onion, etc. and dipping chips into said mixture.  However, in some parts of the world, they are used to make creamy, refreshing desserts.  Smart people.

Here I am presenting you with something that is not only creamy and refreshing, but vegan and raw!  The avocados make up the smooth base with their healthy fats.  Lime juice gives it a citrus zing, but the sweetness of the sugar prevents it from tasting sour.  Finally, what keeps the mixture from freezing rock hard is tequila!  Sí, señor!! 

Vegan Avocado Lime Shake

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avocado, easy, gluten-free, lime, Moosewood, quick, recipes, smoothies, vegan

I love really simple things that turn out to be really tasty.  If you’re doubting the tastiness of this shake, fear not!

Yes, you would be drinking an avocado. Yes, it looks like liquid guac.

But the flavor is awesome!! 

The recipe that started it all…

Tags

avocado, baking, cake, chocolate, frosting, Joy, vegan, weird

It’s my baby niece’s fault.

You see, they found out she was allergic to dairy and soy about a year ago.   My sister therefore had to change her own diet since she was nursing.  This was around her 35th birthday last year (today!), so I felt like I needed to somehow make a dessert that my sister could eat.  I don’t remember what I searched for that actually led me to it, but the recipe that intrigued me the most was Joy the Baker‘s Vegan Chocolate Avocado Cake.

Joy’s blog was actually my first true introduction to the world of food blogging.  Up until then, I would just blindly look up recipes on AllRecipes.com or look through cookbooks (I still do both, of course).  It was all over from there. I started bookmarking any blog that seemed interesting, and still check them all almost every day.  I must have immediately felt like blogging was something I’d like to do, as evidenced by all the photos that I took while making and serving this cake.  Since then, I’ve almost always made a point to photograph at least the finished products.

As you can see by the photos above, the wet ingredients of this cake make an interesting…soup.  Once you add the dry ingredients though, it definitely looks like chocolate cake batter.  This was my first time making a vegan dessert, so I learned about the vinegar/baking soda trick to make the batter rise!