09 Apr Spiced Yogurt Molasses Bread
About this time last year, Steve and I had our first bonding moment. It was completely unromantic – in a group email for a newly-formed sand volleyball team. Steve was the odd man out – the only team member that was not an employee at my then company – and we were all emailing back and forth trying to choose a team name. We hadn’t met yet and my mental image of him fell somewhere along the lines of crusty, unshaven, middle-aged, bar tender. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
My [erroneous] miscalculation stemmed from my impression of our mutual connection and was completely unjustified. It’s kind of a long story so we’ll just jump straight to the moral – don’t be a judgy biatch.
Anyway.
As we were bouncing team names off of the group, Steve threw out Winter is Coming. (That’s a Game of Thrones reference for those of you who are unaquainted.) I immediately told him how totally lame that name would be for a sand volleyball team, but applauded him on his GoT reference, because I too was a fan. To which he replied…absolutely nothing. Yep, I’m pretty sure he completely ignored me, which would become a common theme in the beginning of our relationship – again, another long story.
Our first official exchange of words. If you can even call it that.
I’d like to think that this, the tiniest of interactions, planted a seed. A seed that turned into a huge crush as soon as I actually met him in person and found out that he is, in fact, the handsome-Ivy-League-grad-environmental-engineer type and definitely not the crusty-middle-aged-bar-tender type. Lesson learned.
So that’s how it went. One Game of Thrones reference and a pair of baby blues and I was smitten. Perhaps I’m easy to please, though, I’d like to think that my criteria are a little more strict. I continue to tell myself that I just know a good thing when I see it.
As you may have guessed, we spend a lot of time watching Game of Thrones. It’s one of the very few shows I can actually get Steve to sit down and watch. He’s not much of a TV person. Or a sit still person, for that matter.
Seconds after last Sunday’s Season 4 premiere was announced it was on our calendars. We watched every single teaser (twice) and even rewatched Season 3 in the weeks before. Steve’s reaction to seeing the Red Wedding for the 4th time was somewhere between my dog just died and stabbed in the eye with a sharp object.
Since my TV is about the size of an iPad screen (working on an upgrade – hooray tax return!), Steve convinced his friends to host a Season 4 Premiere watch party at their house. And because no Sunday evening shindig is complete without food, guests were asked to contribute a dish or two for dinner.
Determined to be the truest GoT fans at the party, Steve and I resolved to contribute only Game of Thrones themed foods to the feast. We scoured the web for the best GoT recipes, which proved to be an easy feat because apparently Westeros-style feasting has taken the interwebs by storm. Steve chose to make Beef & Bacon Pie (much better than it sounds) and I made this Spiced Yogurt Molasses Bread and a Lemon Cake that I’ll share later this week.
I was at first skeptical, but then pleasantly surprised by this Spiced Yogurt Molasses Bread. I decided on this particular recipe because it seemed authentically Game of Thrones, which draws a lot of its culinary aspects from medieval times. Dark, dense and molasses-based, this recipe seemed the perfect fit. But then again dark & dense aren’t always the way you want to hear bread described, and when it came out of the oven feeling heavy as a brick I was a little concerned.
But fear not, after cutting into the loaf I knew I’d found a gem. The yogurt gives this bread a dense yet incredibly moist crumb. Can you call a bread creamy? Because that’s where my head keeps going here. Serve it with a little honey butter and you’ll feel like a guest at the Red Wedding festivities (just make sure you leave a little early).
I adapted this recipe from Marian Bull’s Yogurt Bread with Molasses, which was featured on Food52’s 10 Royal Recipes for a ‘Game of Thrones’ Feast. The original recipe was just a little more plain than I was looking for so I included cinnamon and ginger for added spice. The original also notes nuts and dried fruit as optional additions, but I’d wager to say that they’re mandatory. They add that little extra something that takes this bread to the next level. Also, note that it’s very important not to cut into the bread until it’s completely cool. I’m not sure why – but I also don’t want to find out!
Hope you enjoyed the premiere as much as we did! XO, Katie
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
- 1/2 cup medium-grind cornmeal
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1 2/3 cup whole milk yogurt
- 1/2 cup molasses
- 1 cup chopped nuts (I used walnuts)
- 1/2 cup golden raisins or dried cranberries
- Butter, for greasing the pan
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 325° F.
- Mix together your dry ingredients in a large bowl.
- In a separate bowl whisk your yogurt with your molasses.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients in 3 batches, stirring in round, sweeping motions until just combined. The dough willt will be thick. Fold in walnuts and raisins.
- Slice a pat of butter into either a loaf pan or a 7-inch cast iron skillet. Put it into the oven until the butter melts. Remove, then swirl the butter around to grease the pan. Transfer batter into pan, without mixing it any further.
- Bake for one hour, or until a cake tester comes out clean when inserted. Let the bread cool completely before you slice it.
- Serve with honey butter (to make homemade, whip 1 stick of softened butter with 2-3 tbsp of honey and a pinch of salt).
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Posted at 11:15h, 11 April[…] this week I shared this recipe for Spiced Yogurt Molasses Bread that I made for a Game of Thrones watch […]