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It’s the start of National Farmers Market Week! And to start it off, I’m making my Farmers Market Celebration Bread. I’ll start this off by saying that I’m not much of a baker (though I am a great armchair critic of The Great British Baking Show), but this bread is truly foolproof. And it kind of looks like a cross between a funfetti cake and zucchini bread.
So you know how I keep mentioning that you should keep the beet tops? If you didn’t know what to do with them before, try this out. One of the trends I find most exciting in the food world is repurposing what a lot of us used to think of as scraps. By finding new uses for the “scraps,” we really get the most out of our food, and not just in the nutritional sense; its quite economical too. If we are spending more money up front for the best fruit and vegetables, we should get as much out of them as we can. This recipe is one such way to stretch our farmers market buys further.
What is Farmers Market Celebration Bread?
Like I said in the introduction, I like to think of this as the more savory version of a funfetti cake. I love how the beet tops and chard stems look when they’re all dispersed throughout the bread.
Flavor wise, the vegetable stems and tops have flavors reminiscent of their more familiar parts. Beet stems have a vaguely earthy flavor reminiscent of the beetroot itself, but lighter and with a different texture. Chard stems and kale stems taste like the leafy parts, but again, they have a different texture (this is why they are often cut out and removed in other recipes). My recipe for Farmers Market Celebration Bread isn’t too sweet, which allows the flavor profile to focus more on the vegetables.
Farmers Market Celebration Bread Ingredients
Vegetable Stems and Tops
Use the stems and tops of vegetables you already love. I use a mixture of beet tops, rainbow chard stems, kale stems, and kohlrabi stems. You could also use other vegetable scraps, such as zucchini peels, carrot peels, or even broccoli stems. Altogether, you’ll need 2 cups of thinly sliced or diced vegetable stems and tops, so feel free to mix and match.
Whole-milk Yogurt
The yogurt is the main acidic component of this bread, and one of the key ingredients that allows for the bread to rise. I prefer using whole milk yogurt for the higher fat content, as I think it results in a moister, more tender bread.
One thing to note is that I do not recommend a thick, strained yogurt, like Greek yogurt, for this bread.
Eggs
I have a lot of thoughts about eggs, but I’ll save that for another time (briefly, I want my eggs to come from happy chickens, and happy chickens eat bugs). The more important thing to note here is egg size: this recipe calls for large eggs. While I’m sure it would bake if you substitute extra large eggs, this will result in a slightly different texture. If you try this, let me know how it turns out!
All-Purpose Flour
I normally use all-purpose flour for all baking. I’m not very adventurous (yet) with any kind of baking, and this tends to be the only flour I have on hand. However, I have done a partial substitution before with whole wheat flour (up to 1 cup), and that worked well too.
Tips for Making Farmers Market Celebration Bread
This is a quick bread that gets its rise from the baking powder and baking soda. When the acidic ingredients (yogurt, in this case provides most of the acid) meet the baking powder and soda (which are chemically basic), a chemical reaction takes place that releases carbon dioxide, causing the bread to rise. Because this chemical reaction takes place as soon as these ingredients are mixed, I keep the wet (acidic) ingredients separate from the dry ingredients (basic) until I am ready to put everything in the oven.
As mentioned above, I am not a super experienced baker, but I do watch a lot of baking shows (as if that gives me any authority on the subject here). I’ve made this recipe exactly as I’ve written here, but I cannot vouch for any substitutions that I haven’t already outlined. For example – I have no idea if applesauce or a flax egg will work as an egg substitute.
Farmers Market Celebration Bread
This bread is like a savory version of a funfetti cake, with all the colorful vegetable stems sprinkled throughout the bread. It is a great way to use up leftover vegetable scraps and get the most of your farmers market buys.
Ingredients
- Bunch of assorted Vegetable Stems and Tops, such as beet tops, chard stems, kale stems, etc.
- 2 cups All-purpose Flour, divided
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
- ⅓ tsp Baking Soda
- ⅓ tsp Kosher Salt
- ⅓ cup Sugar
- 2 Eggs (large)
- ¼ cup Avocado Oil, plus more to coat pan
- ⅓ cup Whole Milk Yogurt, plain
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F
- Slice vegetable stems and tops finely on a bias. If using other vegetable scraps, dice finely. Place in a prep bowl, and coat with ¼ cup of the all purpose flour. Set aside.
- In another bowl, mix together the remaining flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. This is the dry mix.
- Whisk sugar and eggs together in a third, large bowl until the sugar is fully dissolved and the mixture becomes pale. Mix in oil and yogurt. This is the wet mix.
- Pour dry mix into the wet mix, and fold together until combined. Do not overmix.
- Add vegetable stems to the bread mixture and fold until evenly distributed. Again, do not overmix or the bread will become tough.
- Add the batter to a well-oiled 9x5 loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. The bread should be golden brown and pulling away from the sides of the pan.
- Let bread cool in the pan for approximately 20 minutes before removing from the pan. Allow bread to cool completely before slicing (it will crumble and collapse if you try to cut it too early).
