The Daring Bakers’ February 2012 host was – Lis! Lisa stepped in last minute and challenged us to create a quick bread we could call our own. She supplied us with a base recipe and shared some recipes she loves from various websites and encouraged us to build upon them and create new flavor profiles.

Here is my take for this month – savory Pizza Muffins which hubby loved a lot and a sweet Papaya bread which had me sniffing around the oven, waiting for the bread to finish baking.

Of course, all this happened on 27th evening and the bread got finished baking at around 10.30 PM. But at least, I had the satisfaction of finishing the challenge on time, though posting it in the blog is a different matter.

The pizza muffins were soft, fluffy and just perfect. I wish I had  made some pizza sauce to dunk these, but hubby was happy with ketch up itself. Though they are called Pizza Muffins, they don’t taste like pizza (not without the sauce anyway), but they were good and they got over in a matter of minutes.

Ingredients:

• Onion                                 :        1 medium, chopped fine
• Tomatoes                         :        1-2, chopped
• Capsicum                         :        1 small, chopped
• AP Flour                           :        2 cups
• Cheese                               :        1 cup
• Salt                                      :        1/2 tsp
• Baking Powder               :        1 tbsp
• Dried Italian Herbs      :        1 tsp
• Olive Oil                            :        1 -2 tbsp
• Egg                                      :        1, beaten
• Water                                 :        1 cup

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200 C. Grease a 12 cup muffin tray.
2. Finely chop the onions, tomatoes and capsicum. I added 1 tbsp of fresh fenugreek leaves too.
3. Fry onion and capsicum till they are a bit soft. Take of the heat, add tomatoes, salt and herbs.
4. Mix flour, baking powder and whisk. Add the cheese, veggies, egg and one cup of water. Mix everything until just combined.
5. Spoon into the muffin pan and bake for about 25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
6. Serve with pizza sauce or ketch up.

The papaya bread tasted very much like a banana bread, I couldn’t taste or smell papaya in it. I loved it a lot and so did my son. It was more like a sweet cake than a bread. Thanks Janet for sharing this wonderful recipe.

Ingredients:

• Sugar                               :       1 cup
• Butter                              :       1/4 cup (I had only about 50 gms)
• Eggs                                  :       2
• Mashed Papaya           :       1 1/2 cups ( 3/4 th of a small papaya)
• Walnuts                           :      1/4 cup
• Raisins                             :      1/2 cup
• AP Flour                         :      1 1/2 cups
• Baking Powder             :      1/4 tsp
• Baking Soda                   :      1 1/2 tsp
• Cinnamon Powder      :      1/2 tsp
• Ground Ginger             :      1/2 tsp
• All Spice Powder         :      1/2 tsp
• Salt                                    :      1/4 tsp

Method: 

1. Preheat oven to 325 F/160C. Grease a loaf pan.
2. Cream sugar and butter together, I used a wooden spoon for this. Add the eggs and beat until fluffy. Add the mashed papaya and mix.
3. Mix the dry ingredients (flour through salt) in a separate bowl and whisk together. Add the raisins and walnuts to this and mix.
4. Combine the dry ingredients with the wet and mix until everything is combined and there aren’t any dry lumps.
5.  Pour into the prepared loaf pan and bake for an hour and ten minutes or until a skewer comes clean. I would suggest keeping an eye on the bread after it reaches the 50 minute mark.
6. Slice and serve. Warm or cold, they taste fantastic.

Linked to:

• The Daring Bakers Challenge, Feb 2012 – Quick Breads
•  Healthy Diet Events, for this month’s theme : Baked Goodies