Dutch Spice Bread

Every so often, the children's magazine published by our church contains recipes, and each time, the kids beg me to make something from it.  Very rarely, I do.

So it was no real surprise to hear the Master Kitchen Helper beg me to make something--anything--from the list of recipes included in the December issue.  With a sigh, I looked at the magazine she held spread before her and started evaluating the offerings.

"Actually, kiddo," I finally said, "I think we can make something this month."

"Really?!"  she asked me.

"Yep, and it can count for 'Around the World In 80 Breads'."

She was a little puzzled until I pointed to the recipe called "Dutch Spice Bread".  "If it's Dutch, it's from a European country called the Netherlands," I told her.  "That means it can count."

Excitedly, she helped me go through the ingredients and wrote down the one we were missing--dark corn syrup--on the shopping list.

And a few days later, we met in the kitchen to gather the ingredients and make our foray into Dutch holiday bread.

I think the hand is the Junior Taste-Tester.

Ingredients:

1 cup dark corn syrup

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1 egg

2 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon ginger

1/2 teaspoon cloves

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 325°F (163ºC). Grease a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan with butter or shortening.

Put the corn syrup, brown sugar, and egg into a mixing bowl, and mix them well.
In another bowl mix the flour, baking soda, spices, and salt.

 

I realized when I was about to mix everything together I had goofed: I had put the dry ingredients into the larger bowl. There was no way I would be able to add the flour mixture and the milk alterately to the egg mixture, as the recipe said to do. However, never fear, this recipe is not "rocket science," or they wouldn't be including it in a magazine geared toward children. This just meant I had to be a little tricky.

I began by following the instructions. I added some of the flour mixture to the egg mixture and mixed. Then I added some milk and mixed. When it finally looked like I would spill if I tried to actually mix anything more, I poured the mixed portion back into the bowl with the rest of the flour mixture, added the rest of the milk, and mixed it. 

Voila! 

Pour the batter into the greased loaf pan and bake the bread for 80–90 minutes or until a toothpick poked in the center comes out clean. I ended up baking it closer to 90 minutes than 80.

Cool the bread in the pan for 10 minutes, then remove it and place on a wire rack to cool completely. Amazingly enough for me, who has recently had inexplicable trouble with banana bread breaking apart, it came out of the pan very nicely. (How can someone mess up banana bread?  Ok, ok, so I ended up with the dreaded crack in the middle of the top . . .)

The girls wanted to eat it right away or take it to the Christmas party that evening, but I reminded them the recipe said to wrap the bread in plastic wrap or aluminum foil and let it stand for 24 hours. "Sorry, girls," I told them. "We'll be tasting this bread tomorrow."

The next day, I finally pulled out the bread knife to slice the bread. At first touch, I was astounded how hard it was to cut, because of the density of the bread. This was somewhat disturbing, and I wondered if it would really end up being as good as it looked and smelled. But I remembered the description in the magazine had said parents hung up slices of this bread on strings at birthday time for the children to try to eat blindfolded, so it stood to reason it would necessarily be a dense bread. The real test would be when it was handed to the taste testers at lunchtime.

As it turned out, everyone enjoyed it. They liked the flavor, although the kids enjoyed it better with butter, as the recipe suggested. (They firmly declined trying it with the other option--cream cheese.) My husband really appreciated the flavors of the spices, saying it was one of the best spice breads he had eaten.

All in all, it was a good experiment. I'm not sure we'll end up adopting the tradition of blindfolding our children and hanging slices over their heads, but we will probably end up making it again next year at Christmastime.  (If I can squeeze it in between all the other things I'm already scheduled to make each year at Christmastime . . . I was so busy making cookies, candy, etc., I didn't have a lot of time to try new breads!)

Why my 2nd daughter is called the Kitchen Artiste in Training . . .