The padre LOVES the carrot raisin bread at Mimi's Cafe. Like. He will go there specifically for this bread. So I decided to try to make a slightly more diabetic-friendly version of this at home...
And I failed spectacularly on my first attempt. You don't even know. I've never failed that badly at a baking experiment before. The outside looked great, but the inside refused to bake and stayed raw no matter how much extra time I left it in the oven. It was bad. Tasted fine, but... no. I still don't quite know what happened. I followed the recipe to the letter {I figured I'd try the recipe as is first so I'd know how much I could alter it second time around}. After going back and making notes of what changes we wanted to implement, I tried again. Better.
Here are my notes:
+ You probably won't ever taste the carrot in this carrot raisin bread. I doubled the amount asked for {since the padre said he couldn't taste carrot in that first attempt}... and it didn't make a difference. The end result should basically taste like a light spice cake with fruit bits in it.
+ For the slightly more diabetic-friendly version, I cut the flour to a little over a cup and halved the amount of brown sugar. It works. But if you're not diabetic or worried about the amount of carbs/sugars there are in the bread, I'd recommend using the regular amount of sugar. When my mother says it's not sweet enough, you know it's not sweet enough for regular people {she's usually telling me to cut back on the sugar, so. Yeah}.
+ The first time around, I used a dark glass loaf pan. The second time, I used a square metal baking pan. The square pan worked better. I'm not sure if it was the increased surface area or the different material, but it baked more evenly {aka it wasn't raw in the middle}.
+ Baked at 300*F in a convection oven for 45 minutes, the bread came out pretty well. It was moist, had good texture and crust on the top, the fruit was hydrated, but yeah. Still couldn't taste carrot.
Conclusion: If I were to make this for non-diabetic people, I'd go back to the regular amount of sugar. Or perhaps add cream cheese frosting {Janelle's suggestion that I rather like}. But this works for our household, so if it gets a repeat, I'll probably keep the sugar at half. It's not a bad recipe, but I'd rather make something sweeter, that appeals to a wider audience. *sheepish*
+ For the slightly more diabetic-friendly version, I cut the flour to a little over a cup and halved the amount of brown sugar. It works. But if you're not diabetic or worried about the amount of carbs/sugars there are in the bread, I'd recommend using the regular amount of sugar. When my mother says it's not sweet enough, you know it's not sweet enough for regular people {she's usually telling me to cut back on the sugar, so. Yeah}.
+ The first time around, I used a dark glass loaf pan. The second time, I used a square metal baking pan. The square pan worked better. I'm not sure if it was the increased surface area or the different material, but it baked more evenly {aka it wasn't raw in the middle}.
+ Baked at 300*F in a convection oven for 45 minutes, the bread came out pretty well. It was moist, had good texture and crust on the top, the fruit was hydrated, but yeah. Still couldn't taste carrot.
Conclusion: If I were to make this for non-diabetic people, I'd go back to the regular amount of sugar. Or perhaps add cream cheese frosting {Janelle's suggestion that I rather like}. But this works for our household, so if it gets a repeat, I'll probably keep the sugar at half. It's not a bad recipe, but I'd rather make something sweeter, that appeals to a wider audience. *sheepish*
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Baked Good #7 for The 23 List.
