December Beet Braid Round Up #BreadBakingBabes

I had the pleasure of being the host kitchen for the Bread Baking Babes in December.  My challenge to the bakers was to make beet bread using any color beets and any type of bread they so desired.  This is the round up of the creative beet breads that the Bread Baking Babes and Buddies made. Enjoy!

I chose beet bread because of the nutritional properties of beets but also because I had seen photos of some beautiful beet braids online and thought this would be a lovely bread for the Holidays.

To kick off the fun, I made a Sourdough Red Beet Challah.  I went through several iterations of the bread before I landed upon a version I was pleased with.  The formula I chose as the challenge was an adapted version of Peter Reinhart’s Challah from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice which I converted to using sourdough and beets.

Working with beets and keeping the vibrant hue in the baked bread turned out to be a somewhat more challenging than I anticipated, but the Bread Baking Babes rose to the challenge and a brave Buddy joined in the fun as well. I am always amazed at what the Bread Baking Babes and Buddies come up with when given a challenge.  This time is no exception.

 

Shirley of Flour.ish.en Test Kitchen baked along with us as a Bread Baking Buddy last month.  She made a beautiful Merlot-tinted Sourdough Beet Challah and she also created a variation on a theme with some lovely Multi-color Monkey Bread using pureed beets, carrots and spinach.  Shirley said that “Experimenting with natural vegetable coloring added to sourdough opens colorful renditions and opportunities. For one thing, I’ve learned to bake bread beyond the usual tint of brown.”  I want to thank Shirley for baking along with us and for sharing her creative breads.

 

The Bread Baking Babes came up with some very nice beet breads as well.

Kelly of A Messy Kitchen chose not to have an entire loaf made of pink so she made a bi-colored four-strand sourdough challah using beets and carrots. The results were stunning! Kelly said, “We have a colorful challenge to put forth this month!  This lovely loaf is made with beet puree to yield one heck of a bright loaf.”  One heck of a loaf is right!

 

Judy of Judy’s Gross Eats managed to make a beautiful braided beet bread despite all of the computer challenges she experienced in December.  Judy said, “The end result was near-perfect.  A lovely pinkish-red bread and a non-beet flavor.  One loaf went home with my friend, and one will go to work with me today.  Always good to share.”  Agreed!

 

Lien of Notitie van Lien, made her version using cooked beets and ended up with a gorgeous, muted, but rich-colored braided loaf.  She made one big beautiful loaf. Lien said, “I used cooked beets and adapted the recipe to show how I did it. I thought the bread would be more red in colour, but it has a nice pinkish colour.”

 

Karen, of Karen’s Kitchen Stories, made a fabulous Sourdough Golden Beet Braided Bread.  Her loaf, braided in the shape of a crown, included pureed yellow beets.  Karen said, “I decided to use golden beets, thinking that I might have trouble getting folks to eat sandwiches with pink bread.”  This bread did make good sandwich bread.

 

Elle, of Feeding My Enthusiasms, decided to change things up and make braided rolls instead of braided loaves. She got tremendous oven spring and her purple loaves were affectionately called “Hippo Rolls.”  Elle said, “I decided to go with a savory version instead of a sweet one, so I roasted the beets in a foil packet that included fresh cloves of garlic, fresh rosemary and a little olive oil. My kitchen smelled so good while they were roasting.” 

 

Tanna from My Kitchen in Half Cups made beautiful Sourdough Red Beet Challah loaves even if she didn’t think so.  She included some sprouted wheat flour to give a heady wheat aroma to the bread.  Tanna said, “this bread braid has much going for it.  I’ve learned how beets work in dough and how red you can go with bread.  It has a wonderful crumb and is delightfully moist and soft.  A bread well worth baking and learning from … and definitely worth eating.  That’s why we bake after all.”  Indeed!

 

Elizabeth of blog From Our Kitchen made some perfect challah loaves and some S-shaped rolls. Elizabeth said, “In spite of the red colour, it turns out that beet challah is quite good… But next time, I think it may be wise to either par-cook the beets or use golden beets. The colour really is unnerving… but 50% of the people in the household quite liked the bread, in spite of the colour. Which really wasn’t so frightening in the morning light.”  Even though she had an aversion to pink loaves and using sourdough, Elizabeth played along really well and came up with some stunning loaves.

 

Thanks everyone for being such good sports and baking the beet bread.  Your loaves look fabulous!

I look forward to seeing what you come up with next month.  Check the Bread Baking Babes FB group on January 16th to find out what the January bread will be.

 

Until then…

Happy Baking!

Cathy