a “duh” moment

I realized last night, that amid all of my experiments with bread, I completely forgot about the autolyse technique, which I learned about several years ago.

I’d like to try it with spelt (I’ve been working on spelt bread recently) but I’ve run out of spelt flour.  Regardless, this is something I must work with. 

You might be asking yourself what I am talking about  right now.

Autolyse is when you mix flour and water first, and allow that to rest 20-30 minutes.  This affects the gluten strands.  The reported result is a dough that mixes in less time and is stronger.  It’s supposedly also more flavorful and less acidic.  Autolyse is not considered a sponge or a pre-ferment because the yeast has not been included yet.  Also, do not add salt during autolyse because it’ll affect moisture and gluten formation.

If nothing else this holiday weekend, I’m making a loaf of bread.

(ok, ok, I’m probably making cookies this weekend too but that’s totally unrelated.)

 

I haven’t forgotten this blog… so here’s a bread post

I have things I want to try… a restaurant review that I should be posting for Addis Red Sea… and I just haven’t had time lately for everything.  Or least it feels that way.  Maybe I’m just being lazy?

So, in the meantime, here’s the bread recipe post that I’ve been promising since the winter.  *eep!*

I haven’t completely given up on preferments just yet, but I’m beginning to think that I’m not that impressed (Asano-mama got the CookWise book recently, so I’d like to try a Shirley O’Corriher recipe before giving up on preferments completely).  I apologize in advance if some of the measurements seem weird.  I was converting them from an existing recipe from the UK.

I did try the recipe below a second time without the barley flour.  I still wasn’t wowed as I had hoped I’d be, but your mileage may vary.

Slow fermentation, adapted from Andrew Whitley

I came across an interesting radio piece after some googling – it was about slow fermentation and bread as presented by the BBC.  It was kind of fascinating.  Half of the show was talking to a die-hard-slow-fermentation-all-natural-all-local bread maker and the other half was talking to we-are-the-bread-federation-of-Britain man.   Ok, they aren’t called the “bread federation of Britain”, but they were definitely the federation of something.  (haha!)

Basically, the whole radio show can be summed up as thus: “no one can prove that slow fermentation is healthier, but it probably does taste better although less squishy.”

Some searching gave me an Andrew Whitley recipe for a basic bread.  Since I live in good ol’ New England, I had to revamp the recipe for use with my measuring cups and such.

First, here’s the Andrew Whitley version (cut and paste):
source – http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/apr/16/recipes.foodanddrink/print
This is the way most bread was made until the dawn of the era of high-speed mixing and “no time” dough. Although it involves a long rise, it doesn’t take any more of the baker’s time than fast-made bread. It uses less yeast, too, and the long fermentation gives great flavour and additive-free keeping quality. This makes a dozen rolls or two small loaves.

1. Overnight sponge
5g fresh yeast (or 3g dried yeast)
130g water (at about 20°C)
150g stoneground wholemeal flour
[285g total]

Dissolve the yeast in some of the water and add it to the flour with the rest of the water. Mix until the dough has “cleared”, that is, all the ingredients are thoroughly combined. There is no need to knead the sponge, since time will develop the gluten sufficiently. Put the sponge in a bowl large enough to allow it to expand to at least three times its original size. Cover with a lid or polythene bag and leave it at room temperature for 12-18 hours.

2. The final dough
285g overnight sponge (from above)
450g flour (wholemeal or a mix of white and wholemeal)
5g salt
270g water (warm to the hand, i.e. 30-35°C)
15g butter or olive oil (optional, but makes rolls a bit softer)
[1,025g total]

Mix all the ingredients into a soft dough. Knead without adding extra flour until it is silky and slightly stretchy. Cover and leave to rise for 1 hour. Divide into 12 pieces (or two for small loaves), shape into rolls, dip into wholemeal flour to get a good covering, and place on a baking tray with about 2cm separating them. Cover with a large polythene bag but don’t let it touch the rolls. Let them rise until they are just touching each other, then bake in a hot oven (220°C) for 10-15 minutes. They should have a thin floury crust and feel soft after they have cooled.
© Andrew Whitley 2008.

Now, the US friendly version as adapted by me:

1. Overnight sponge
1/2 tsp instant yeast
1/2 cups plus 1 Tbsp water
1 cup plus 3 Tbsp all-purpose flour

Mix until well combined.  Cover with a lid or plastic wrap (but not too tightly).  Let this fart around overnight.

2. The final dough
all of the overnight sponge from above
3 1/2 cups of flour (all-purpose, bread flour, whole wheat or any mixture of the three… I used all-purpose with one cup of barley flour out of curiosity)
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup plus 2 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp mild olive oil

Mix all together.  Try not to add extra flour, but I found that I had to.  I added only a tablespoon at a time.  The dough should be “silky and slightly stretchy.”  Cover and let this rise for an hour.  Divide in in half, and shape into a ball.  I didn’t bother covering this with flour.  I put both dough halves on either side of my biggest sheet pan.  I loosely covered with plastic wrap that had been sprayed with oil (oil side touching the dough, duh), and let the doughs rise until about double in bulk and almost touching each other.  Cut a slash on top.

Bake in the oven at 425F for 20-25 minutes.

Let cool on a wire rack.

Overall, I liked the results.  They were like giant dinner rolls, reminiscent of bread rolls from Bertucci’s.  *grin*  I have mixed feelings about the barley flour I used.  Over time, the barley flour just make the bread taste “healthy” (less noticeable when still warm from baking).  Not necessarily in a bad way, mind you, but I’ve never used barley flour before I’ve seen it described as a mild, sweet flour.  So, I guess I was a little let down.  I wouldn’t mind using the barley flour again, but I’ll have to use less than a cup.

As for the overall method, I thought the sponge (aka preferment/biga/poolish) was kind of fun.  It’s kind of cool to see the sponge be all bubbly.  It worked fine, and I’ll probably work with more preferments in the future.

~Mikan

 

Victorian milk bread, with quinoa flour

The weather here in Boston has been slowly getting warmer.  Better temperatures for rising dough, but less ideal for turning on my oven.  On top of that, my weak/bad wrist is tempermental whenever I’m kneading.

I think this might be my last loaf for the season.  I might try some no-knead recipes, but the bulk of my bread experimentation will have to wait for the weather to get cold again.

I realize, too, that I’ve been promising one or two posts on breads with a pre-ferment, but I haven’t posted them at all due to… well, a lack of interest.  More pathetic is the fact that I had one completely written up and saved on my computer.  I am lame, lame, lame.  And it isn’t the fault of the bread recipe.  I’ve just realized that I don’t think I like the flavor of my breads with a pre-ferment.  The best of the pre-ferment experiments is the one that I had written up, so perhaps I’ll still post it.  But not today.

And I apologize for the lack of pictures.  I’m trying to get back into the swing of things.

* * *

So, I’ve had a box of quinoa flour sitting in my pantry for at least a couple of months.  I’ve never cooked/baked with it before – I was just curious.  (but I have cooked with quinoa itself, and I love it)

Searching for bread recipes that 1) weren’t gluten-free and 2) used the flour and not cooked quinoa proved to be a little tricky.

Eventually, I started searching for milk bread recipes since I had some whole milk to use up and came across a recipe for “Victorian Milk Bread” which I used and fiddled around with for my purposes.

Here’s what I used:
1 1/4 cups lukewarm milk
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cups quinoa flour
1 cup white whole wheat flour
2 cups of all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoons SAF instant yeast
2 teaspoons of vital wheat gluten

General instructions:
Mix everything into a bowl.  Personally, I found I had to add 1-2 tablespoons of water to make the dough wet enough.  Then, knead for 10 minutes.  Put the dough in a bowl to rise, and cover with a bit of plastic wrap or a damp towel so that it doesn’t dry out.  Let rise for about 4 hours or until doubled in bulk.

Remove the dough from the bowl and shape into a loaf.  Place the loaf in a standard bread pan and let it rise (again, loosely place some plastic wrap over it) until it’s above the rim of the pan, probably about an inch above.  Hmmm, I think it took about an hour or so for me to get there.

Pre-heat your oven to 350F and lower the oven rack to bottom third.

Bake 30-35 minutes.

Overall reaction?  Quinoa flour does not remind me of quinoa at all.  It’s less sweet.  I think the gluten was a good call, considering that I did not use bread flour at all.  It makes for a decent everyday bread.  I now know that I am not very enamored with quinoa flour but I don’t know how else to use it up.  Having said that, the results here were very acceptable.  I’ll see about using it for a no-knead dough.

Comments on the general recipe?  Easy, forgiving and easy to mess around with.  I think I’ll need to remake it but using my buckwheat flour next time around.

~ Mikan

quick notes: 1) bread flour has more protein than wheat flour or AP flour and quinoa is gluten-free, hence my addition of wheat gluten; 2) I did not want to make a gluten-free bread because you generally need a mixture of gluten-free flours which I do not have; 3) for my wheat and AP flours, I only use King Arthur.  Different brands make a huge difference.

 

A Tale of Two Cookies

Sometimes, a person comes across something so intriguing that action must be taken up at once.

I had that moment recently, and it was called Peanut Butter Rosemary White Chocolate Chunks cookies. Peanut butter and rosemary? When a blogger mentions being a trained pastry chef in a meme, you don’t take such odd recipe posts lightly.

Asano-mama didn’t sound very optimistic about this recipe, which only fueled my determination. I set about making these cookies, starting even with the rosemary powder.

I think the rosemary powder is an excellent idea in general. However, I admit that it was my stumbling point. After one whole hour, I only had 3 tsp of rosemary powder. Why? I was using a tea strainer as my “fine mesh” accessory, and this tea strainer had really, really small mesh holes. Plus, the strainer was a little deep for the size of my hands, which just made an arduous task more difficult. o_O

The most evil part of the whole night? Realizing when I went to bed that I had a strainer/skimmer that would have been the perfect size for the task. *facepalm*

Oh well, 3 tsp was pretty close to the original 3 1/2 tsp requested in the recipe. The cookies came out just fine.

So, back to the idea of peanut butter and rosemary – wow, they paired really well! Once I smelled the cookies baking, I knew that there was no question regarding the yumminess factor of these cookies. Straight out of the oven, the peanut butter pretty much was the dominant flavor. If I hadn’t known that rosemary was in my cookie, I might not have noticed it. The rosemary was delightfully subtle. Overnight, the rosemary flavor has gotten stronger, but nothing to worry over. Without question, I’m keeping this cookie recipe in my favorites.

cookie recipe here – http://clumbsycookie.blogspot.com/2009/03/pbrwcc-cookies.html

rosemary powder instructions here – http://clumbsycookie.blogspot.com/2009/03/rosemary-powder.html

And then this morning, I tried a batch of Trader Joe’s Cranberry and Oatmeal cookies. They’re “break and bake” cookies, except without the breaking part. These cookies are frozen in their individual, pre-measured amounts. And you know what? They’re wonderful. Great for when you need to impress people (or in my case, share with my cello classmates) but with very little effort. Such a stark contrast to my one-hour-making-rosemary-powder! Plus, it’s a nice change from chocolate chip break and bake cookies.

Thumbs up for Trader Joe’s. ^_^

(I admit, there are a number of Trader Joe’s products that I’m in love with. I’m considering posting reviews and pictures of them. I haven’t totally decided yet.)

~Mikan

 

A white bread with mahleb

I made another loaf of bread – a white bread from Beth Hensperger’s “Bread Made Easy” book. And it was the prettiest loaf I have ever made. I fiddled with Ms. Hensperger’s recipe a little by throwing in some mahleb. Mahleb is the pit of the sour cherry. Once crushed, it’s often thrown in to Greek breads (things I learn from our very own Asano-mama). Anyway, I finally bought a small jar of mahleb from Penzeys in December and decided “what the heck – let’s throw it in.” Now, I don’t know if mahleb is easily obtained at a store in ground form. Penzeys leaves their product in the pit form. After some googling, the recommendation is to crush only as necessary and to store the mahleb in the freezer, because, like nuts, it can go rancid. Mahleb is pretty easy to crush with a mortar and pestle, so it’s not particularly inconvenient.

It was a fun experiment. However, since I’ve never made this particular white bread before, I had nothing to compare my results with. This is a repeat occurrence in my life – experimenting without a controlled result.

Adapted from the milk bread master recipe in Bread Made Easy by Beth Hensperger.

one standard size bread loaf pan
3 to 3.5 cups of all-purpose or bread flour
1 Tbsp sugar (I always cook with cane sugar these days)
1 tsp instant yeast
1 tsp salt
1 cup warm milk
1/8 cup boiling water
1 1/2 Tbsp of mild olive oil (this is the same as 4 1/2 tsp)
1 1/2 tsp crushed mahleb (if you can’t find it, skip it)
1 egg mixed with 1Tbsp milk for glaze (optional – I didn’t bother with it)

Start by mixing 2 cups of flour with the sugar, yeast and salt in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, mix the milk, boiling water and the oil (this should not be above 125F – it should feel hot to the touch… then again if you’re me and you forgot to warm the milk before mixing all of the wet ingredients, do your best to warm the mixture as best as possible and don’t worry that you’ve ruined it).

Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients, and start incorporating the wet ingredients. Once this is well mixed, add the remaining flour until it becomes a stiff, shaggy dough that is clearing the sides of the mixing bowl. Move the dough onto a clean counter, and knead for 5-8 minutes, adding flour only as needed to stop the dough from sticking to everything.

Let this rise until double in bulk in a greased container. If your kitchen is cold like mine is (hello! I live in New England and it’s winter here!), don’t worry if the dough takes more than 2 hours to rise. Yeast loves temperatures at around 80F – any hotter and you risk killing your yeast, but any colder and the yeast just takes longer to do its stuff.

Grease your bread loaf pan. When the dough is ready, turn it out onto the counter. The dough will softly deflate, don’t worry about punch your dough down. Cut the dough into half. With each half, roll the dough with your palms until you have a log about 10 inches long. Wrap the dough logs around each other for a twisted effect. Place this in your pan and left rise until double in bulk (the dough will probably rise to about an inch or so over the pan rim).

Bake at 375F for about 40 minutes. You want a nice brown color to the crust and it should sound hollow if you knock on it. Remove the loaf carefully from the bread pan when done, and let the loaf cool on a wire rack.

~ Mikan

 

invasion of the SAF yeast

Just in case anyone is curious, I only use SAF instant yeast when I make my doughs. And I’ve been making a lot of doughs lately. Sorry I couldn’t come up with a wittier title.

Anyway!

So, challah #2 wasn’t all that special to me. Challah #1 was courtesy of Beth Hensperger’s book “Bread Made Easy” while challah #2 was from http://steamykitchen.com/blog/2008/01/13/challah/, and if you get the chance to look at the ingredients, they aren’t all that different. It was, if I recall, a difference in the amounts of fat being used. The No-Knead Challah was mild in comparison to Ms. Hensperger’s, and Asano-mama and I agreed that challah #1 was tastier. And honestly, I don’t mind a little kneading.

There’s only one photo of challah #2… mostly because it looked uglier than challah #1. Also, I realized after the fact that I think I braid my breads backwards from the traditional braid. haha!

At that same time, I had another yeast experiment going. I decided to make Chef John’s No Knead Pizza dough ( see http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2008/12/no-knead-mania-makes-previously-posted.html). It’s a solid recipe, and I think my permanent way of acquiring pizza dough. Yeah, it only costs maybe a dollar at my market, but I feel more accomplished if I make it on my own (plus, I’ve been hearing that slow fermentation has better nutritional qualities, but I haven’t researched that yet). It does require a whole day to rise, especially in my cold New England kitchen, but it’s not that hard to think “Geez, I want pizza for dinner tomorrow – Let me make a batch of pizza dough.”

If you follow Chef John’s instructions, you end up with four individual pizza crust servings. He means thin crust. I prefer to think of it as two servings to make a thicker crust. At that point, I’m not sure if I could eat a whole pizza on my own (that’s a bit of dough!), but your mileage may vary.

pizza dough

As for toppings on the first pizza that I’ve ever made from scratch, I used tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, jack cheese, and slices of red bell pepper. It was beautiful, it was perfect, and I devoured it all in twenty minutes.

red pepper pizza

But that wasn’t the end to my madness. Baking means a warm kitchen during the winter, so I baked some more.

This time, I went back to my trusty “Bread Made Easy” book, and picked out a recipe for a holiday sweet bread. The recipe makes two loaves, one of which I left plain and the other I put in dried figs. I had also replaced the orange extract with almond extract, which I couldn’t tell in the end because it was too subtle compared to the flavor of butter.

plain on the left, figs on the right

The plain loaf was a gift for a co-worker, so I only have pictures of the fig loaf sliced.

Sel de la Terre has an amazing fig loaf, but it’s not so sweet and they use fresh figs. While my fig loaf was good, I really wanted the Sel de la Terre version. I guess it’s something I need to further work on.

The last bread I made was an experimental red pepper hummus bread. Again, my recipe was courtesy of the Foodwishes video blog (http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2008/11/holiday-pumpkin-bread-you-want-it-but.html). All I did was replace the amount of pumpkin with an equal amount of red pepper hummus. There was a little bit of kneading involved because I was having trouble getting the dough to come together with just a mixing spoon. I also doubled the yeast so that I could make it all in one day.

Overall, I’d say it was pretty successful… except the part where I seemed to have burnt half of my bread. That was embarrassing! After five loaves of bread, I finally messed up. And this bread was meant for a party too. I probably would have presented my slightly burnt loaf if it weren’t for the fact that the party was for a dear friend of mine, nickname “oh cake”, who is currently a culinary student. There was no way that I could place my ugly loaf next to her lovely food presentations! XD

(“oh cake” is currently blogging about her time in culinary school if anyone is interested –> http://oh-cake.livejournal.com/)

Despite my red pepper hummus bread being ugly, it photographed rather well.

So, that’s been the bread adventure so far. I think I am experimenting with mahleb in my bread tomorrow. Tonight, the plan is to make some roasted veggie soup.

If anyone wants either the challah or the holiday bread recipe for Beth Hensperger, please comment. I’d post it now, but my book is on the other side of the room from me and I’m currently hiding in a sleeping bag for warmth.

~ Mikan

 

A cold weather summary

Eek! I have several photos to share and yet I have been so lazy about making a post.

My punishment? Doing one big post as concise as possible. gah!

Well, let’s do it in months:

October – the household and a couple of friends went to Mack’s in New Hampshire for apple picking and squash overdosing. Personally I purchased four squashes: a delicata, two sweet dumplings, and a sunshine (which I later learned is a variety of kobocha, aka Japanese pumpkin).

sushine squash

I liked the delicata fine, but it wasn’t anything special. I adored the sweet dumpling, but maybe that is because I stuffed it with spiced apples. The sunshine was definitely a favorite, but I was sad that I had stuffed it with apples too. The sunshine squash had a flavor a lot more like chestnuts than like your normal squashes.

November – I started to make a lot of batches of what I like to call “pancake muffins.” They are exactly like what they sound like. Pancake batter cooked in an oven instead of on the stove top. So much faster and cleaner! And in easy to grab serving sizes too.

I have been using the Bisquick Healthy mix (because I am too lazy to even mix together basic pancake batter) with yogurt as my liquid to simulate a yogurt pancake batter. I’ve tried blueberry yogurt (the house favorite), strawberry (also pretty good), apple with cinnamon (very disappointing flavor-wise), and mixed berry. Last night, I made a batch with raspberry yogurt. Basically, the more flavorful yogurts work best for this. Once the batter was mixed, I plopped it into a muffin tin at 375F for about 15 minutes.

They taste best straight out of the oven, but keep well in the freezer. The only downside to storing in the freezer is that they seem a little drier after you reheat them.

Seriously though, pancake muffins have become my latest addiction. They also seem to keep me full longer than my favorite healthy cereals.

pancake muffins

December – the new obsession? Challah bread. I made my first loaf last weekend and I’m making my second loaf as we speak. I nearly freaked out when I was in the middle of making my first loaf. In a moment of ditziness, I used water from my Brita filter… the same Brita that I keep in the fridge for cold water. Three hours later, the dough had barely budged.

I was worried that I had ruined it. Luckily, I’ve had some introduction to slow fermentation using colder temperatures, I didn’t think all was lost. So I decided to warm up the dough in a slightly warmed oven. Once all of the chill was gone, I left my bread bucket with my dough on my kitchen counter. Three hours later, it had doubled beautifully. I went about braiding it (also my first time) and let it do it’s final rise (and skipped the second rise completely because it was getting rather late).

My propensity for laziness reared its ugly head again, and I used a milk wash instead of a proper egg wash. When everything was said and done, the challah tasted wonderful but it just wasn’t shiny. I have nothing to compare it to, but I was pretty satisfied with my first challah attempt. (The recipe I used was from Beth Hensperger’s “Bread Made Easy” book, if you’re curious.)

With the slow fermentation accident, I wondered how it would turn out if I did a proper slow fermentation challah bread. On top of that, I had been watching bread videos featuring no-knead techniques which is basically a slow fermentation (http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/).

Couldn’t the two be put together? I thought I was onto something interesting.

I realized today that I wasn’t all that original. Googling “no kead challah recipes” spit out more responses than I had expected. Eventually, I came across a post on Steamy Kitchen (http://steamykitchen.com/blog/2008/01/13/challah/) that seemed to have exactly what my head was thinking of experimenting with. I thought about re-using Beth Hensperger’s recipe, but decided to go with what was on the Steamy Kitchen blog. Overall, the measurements weren’t too different. My only substitution was to use oil instead of butter.

So now, I have a dough just hanging out in my fridge, waiting for tomorrow when I will actually shape and bake it.

In the meantime, here are photos of the challah loaf I made last weekend. It only lasted a few days before I had eaten it all. (Photos of challah loaf no. 2 later.)

~ Mikan

 

Goodies fit for a yard sale

My niece asked me to bake chocolate chip cookies for her lemonade stand that she was having at my sister’s yard sale; I decided to bake some pumpkin cranberry mini-muffins, too.  The cookie recipe is available on the King Arthur Flour website; the muffin recipe is available on theppk.com.  I think these might have been the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve baked, and the muffins freeze well for popping in the microwave whenever I need a quick and easy breakfast

 

Rosemary for a birthday boy

I guess, if there is one, the theme of my cooking attempts this week has been “rosemary.”

It started with baking cookies for a friend’s birthday. This friend is most near and dear, and I wanted something that I thought he’d like and something that didn’t require a whole lot of effort. He’s tasted my cooking… oh, only the one time I think (plum pie), and for some reason my head thinks this is an insult to my cooking abilities. Or something like that.

Well, if my weakness is for the color blue, then his is for the taste of rosemary. So, when I came across a recipe for rosemary butter cookies, there was no question in my mind. He was getting rosemary cookies for his birthday.

I made a half batch, just in case this experiment went terribly wrong, and had the household sample it. Plumduff, Asano-mama, and I were strangely addicted. Stealth Eater said they weren’t bad, but the rosemary confused her tastebuds. She kept saying that they were “interesting.” When prompted, she wouldn’t say good-interesting or bad-interesting, just “interesting.”

I was impressed enough, and the birthday boy was given a baggie of little cookies. The result? Well, he asked for the recipe (which I forgot to give to him), so I think that’s good sign.

Another good sign was yesterday at work. I made another half batch since I had too much rosemary still in my fridge, and subjected my co-workers to my baking efforts (last time, it was sesame seed cake which was so “meh” in my opinion that I wanted to redeem myself). They were very, very well received. Wow!

So, now I’m thinking about making another batch of rosemary cookies, just because I can.

Recipe came from here – http://foodloveswriting.com/2008/09/03/rosemary-cookies-from-heaven/

And although there are no pictures of it and I don’t plan on making a more official post on it, I also used the rosemary for some fish tonight. I tried my hand at fish en papillote – I used salmon, salt and pepper, slivers of sweet onion, bits of portobello mushrooms, a large sprig of rosemary, and a tablespoon of rice wine vinegar. I cooked it a little too long, but overall I was pretty happy with the results. Onion and portobello with rosemary was delicious. The salmon didn’t pick up the rosemary as much as I would have liked, but it was still there and yummy. Next time, I should sandwich the rosemary between the salmon and the onion/mushrooms.

But yeah, still good. And I am very full.

~Mikan

 

It’s baking season again

As the weather starts to cool, I’m in the mood to bake again.  Last weekend, I decided to try a pumpkin cranberry bread recipe I found on joybofbaking.com.  I did make a few replacements:  half whole wheat pastry flour, leftover date sugar for some of the granulated sugar, and applesauce for the last fourth cup of oil because I ran out of canola oil; next time, I might try to replace some of the eggs with flax seed meal and/or at least some of the sugar with maple syrup.  Happily, the replacements I tried worked out fine, and the loaves came out nice and moist for eating!