LOAFIES: Betwixt Cake and Cracker

(repost from Sept 27 2007)

Edna Staebler has passed on so I am no longer able to phone her at her cottage on Sunfish Lake near Kitchener, Ontario.  "If your ears are burning," I'd tell her, "it's because I'm once again prancing  around the kitchen shouting,  'Thank you, Edna, for your – " and it was her Doughnut Muffins or Cucumber Salad or Irish Soda Bread or Speedy-Pat-In-Pastry or any one of a number of other offerings from one of her Schmecks cookbooks.  She was a special lady and I benefit from having known her.

We shared an enthusiasm for life so what I would be phoning her for now – and miss being able to do so! – is to say "Edna, guess what I've done with your Carrot Bread recipe – you know how you love crackers – well – I've turned the carrot bread loaf into  something between a cake and a cracker.   I'm calling them loafies, for want of a better word.  You must try them."  And I know she would. 

Here is the More Food That Really Schmecks book and the Carrot Bread just out of the oven.

For  the loafies it would be better to cook it in a loaf pan but  I've always cooked it  in a tube pan, so that's the reason it is so here.

Here's the recipe:

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup salad oil
2 eggs
1 cup shredded carrots
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cup sifted flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon

For the loafies I added 1/2 cup roasted pumpkin seeds (unsalted)
and 1 tsp caraway seeds

I put sugar, oil, eggs, chunked carrots and milk into blender and whirl until carrots are chopped.  Then pour this liquid over the dry ingredients which have been sifted together.  Stir until well mixed.

Pour into greased loaf pan and bake in 350 F oven  for 55 min or so.

Now – remove from pan and let cool. 

Then, cut cake into thin slices, and then bite- sized pieces, and put on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Put back into a 350F oven and bake for 15 minutes.  Take from oven, turn oven down to 300F, turn each almost-loafie over, pop back into oven and bake for another 10 minutes or so.  You want them crisp but not overly brown.  I turn oven off after the ten minutes, leave oven door open, and let them dry as the oven cools.  This is what they look like.   I think Edna would have been very pleased.         

(The inspiration to double bake  came from biscotti recipes and Lesley Stowe's  wonderful   Raincoast Crisps)

I am now wondering how banana loaf would 'loafie'.  And date bread… and cranberry…