Peanut Butter & Chocolate Chip Bread

• Cheap little lion-shaped coin bank from the junky toy store:  $1.99
• Snack-sized tupperware filled with pennies:  $1.35 (ok, I'm guessing on this one, it's a pretty small container, there's no way it could hold much more than 100 or so pennies. The container itself was a freebie)
• One Apple & Eve juice box:  $.29 ($2.29 for a package of eight)
• Monthly cost of running air conditioner all day:   ugh, don't ask
• Being able to fix dinner and bake a tasty treat uninterrupted while the bonny lass sips from a juice box and inserts pennies into the bank for hours and hours...

PRICELESS!

I think I may have mentioned at one time or another that I prefer cookbooks that read more like memoirs over cookbooks that are strictly about technique and recipes. I'm especially attracted to those books that give voice to the older, sometimes forgotten generations of our grandparents and great grandparents. I am even more captivated by a book if those stories and recipes come from people with backgrounds and traditions as diverse and multicultural as my own background and upbringing. I am a softie for tradition and doing things the old fashioned way so you can see why I would be attracted to a book like "Larissa's Bread Book-Baking Bread & Telling Tales With Women of the American South" by Lorraine Johnson-Coleman and why, after flipping through the book and finding out that it humbly began as a school fund-raising project assigned to Johnson-Coleman’s 13 year old daughter Larissa that I had to read this book. This is actually Larissa’s story, a story of how she met ten remarkable women and was able to get them to open up to her and share their lives and how they also gave her a recipe or ten along the way. Hi, I’m Deb, and this is my story about how much I adored this book and just had to make Sister Friday’s “Peanut Butter Bread.”

I was attracted to this bread recipe for two reasons, the peanut butter, and how incredibly easy it seemed. I kept looking over the list of ingredients and the instructions and thinking “is it really that simple and how can I make it better” Well, as I found out, it really was THAT simple and I definitely think I made it better or, at least made it something more special by adding a generous amount of semi-sweet chocolate chips and a large pinch of instant espresso powder to the batter. I think you really have to like peanut butter (luckily I do) if you want to make this bread because the peanut flavor really stands out, which was a pleasant surprise because I was convinced the peanut flavor wouldn't assert itself enough after the addition of the chocolate but it did. The whole thing was very good, moist and sweet but not too sweet with just the right peanut flavor and aroma. I didn’t actually do this (yet) but I imagine a variation on Elvis’s famous peanut butter and banana sandwich would be to grill 2 slices of this bread, top it with some honey and mashed banana and dig in . Mmmmm

ETA: Well, I'm a little embarassed. I might be the only person around who didn't realize that "Larissa's Bread Book" was a work of fiction according to this interview. I guess lack of adequate sleep and too many late nights reading when I should be getting rest somehow clouded my perception of what the book was about, it sure read like it was fact and not a work of fiction. I'll have to go back and reread. I'm at work right now but will check the book when I get home. ETA again! OK! I'm even more embarassed now. I linked to this same blurb in a post I did a while back when I bought this book. Boy, I'm REALLY not retaining anything in my brain these days-duh!

Adapted from "Larissa's Bread Book-Baking Bread & Telling Tales With Women of the American South" by Lorraine Johnson-Coleman. Notes in parenthesis are mine.

Peanut Butter Bread

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt (I used Kosher salt and found it added just the right amount of saltiness, I think table salt might have made it too salty)
• 4 teaspoons baking powder (level, not heaping)
• 1-1/2 cups (whole) milk
• 1/2 cup peanut butter (I used smooth "all natural style" but I'm sure crunchy would be great too)
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (heaping)
• a pinch of instant espresso powder (the coffee enhances the chocolate flavor)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Combine dry ingredients. Add milk and peanut butter and chocolate chips and stir gently until well combined. Pour into a greased 8x4x3-inch loaf pan. Bake for approximately 50 minutes (oven times may vary).

Yields 1 loaf.

Written by Deb on August 3, 2005 02:08 AM