Thanks to the Buttermilk . . .

I spent a lot of Monday, my day off, baking and doing "around the house" type of activities. I did manage to squeeze in an hour at the pool once the sun finally decided to show its face. Mondays have turned into cooking/baking days because when I'm in rehearsals it is nice to come home at 7:30 in the evening and have something I can heat up and eat when I walk in the door. Yesterdays mission was to find recipes to use up Buttermilk. Why is it you can only purchase the one size of buttermilk? It seems like most recipes only call for a cup or less of it so you end up with almost a full carton sitting in your refrigerator getting old and taking up space. Maybe the buttermilk makers should invest in some smaller cartons. As a result of having way to much buttermilk on my hands from the baking of cupcakes last week I started looking for recipes online to use up the left over buttermilk - I've been trying really hard to not let things go moldy down here in California and so far I've only lost 2 tomatoes (separate incidents), a peach and an avocado. While on my search for potential recipes I happened across this blog/site - Pink of Perfection: A Thrifty Girls Guide to the Good Life - that has a whole list of potential tasty buttermilk creations. AND I AM the PERFECT example of a "thrifty girl" (thanks mom!). I went through the list a few times but got off track when I realized I also had a few other things in my cupboard that needed to be used. Surprisingly a quick google search lead me to a recipe for Avocado Bread - I know! Right! Avocado Bread - sounds crazy but it actually turned out pretty yummy. The recipe is fairly simple AND uses buttermilk.

EASY AVOCADO BREAD

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 50 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Makes one loaf

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 large egg

1/2 cup mashed avocado (1 medium avocado)

1/2 cup buttermilk

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Generously grease a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan. 

Combine the flour, sugar, soda, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. Whisk to blend thoroughly. 

In a separate bowl, beat together the egg and avocado. Stir in the buttermilk. Add to the dry ingredients and blend well.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. (I covered mine with tinfoil once the top started to get brown so it wouldn't burn and then uncovered for the last 5 minutes of baking.)

It reminds me of banana bread but not as sweet with a hint of something - if you didn't know it was avocado bread it would probably be hard to guess what the secret ingredient was. I prefer mine warmed - like it came out of the oven with a little bit of butter. I really expected it to be more green, like it were baked in the Emerald City but that just wasn't so.

I also baked a plum tart (who knew plums made good tarts?) and tonight finished off the buttermilk with some homemade cinnamon rolls - they will baked in the morning so I'll let you know how they turn out.