orange pecan bread

Two weeks ago my dear friend Galit (pictured left) had a lovely Shabbat celebration at her house. For those who are not familiar with Shabbat, it is the day of rest in Judaism, observed every Friday at sundown. Candles are light, challah is eaten and prayers are said. This was quite a relaxed Shabbat though, so don't go reading about it on Wikipedia and think you know it all, because that's what I did and I was way off. This party was a reinvented celebration of sorts incorporating a Middle Eastern potluck, PBR in a can (red wine too, of course), the gathering of -likeminded, 'why were we not friends before this party?'- people, and was accompanied mostly by Devendra Bernhardt. Galit knew all the lovely prayers to say before and during the lighting of the candles and then we passed beautiful bread around and each said some wonderful words of enlightenment and thankfulness and then ate mounds of falafel, couscous tabuoli and stuffed grape leaves.



When Galit invited me she mentioned that it was a potluck and said if I wanted to bring something to eat, loosely based on a Middle Eastern theme, I could but that it was not necessary. I took this to mean that I needed to check out all the Jewish baking books from the library, scour the internet and magazine databases to find the most traditional Shabbat recipe that I could find; speaking strictly of sweets, of course. Then I would take lovely pictures, blog all about it and be all the smarter for it. But what I found out upon my recent reference adventure was that Jewish bakery books are mainly composed of wonderful recipes, most of which are pretty normal though. Hence the orange pecan bread you see here. A lot of recipes were written with parve directions, meaning it did not contain 'dairy', however, the Jewish rules state that both eggs and honey (neither of which are vegan) can be used. So of course I had to modify, but I had a lot of excellent nerdy baking moments looking through the recipes trying to decide what to bake. I decided upon this recipe for many reasons. It was fast, I had most of the ingredients already, and it was super low maintenance but sounded kind of fancy. Two hours later, including a trip to the grocery, my house was filled with the sweet smells of orange and spice and everything nice. Although I used a bundt pan to make my bread that is not what the recipe suggested; it asked for 2 loaf pans. Either will work fine.

The book I liked the most was "Secrets of a Jewish Baker: 125 Breads from Around the World", by George Greenstein. There is a nice combination of sweet, yeast, quick and easy recipes, all of which are fabulous. His introductions are straightforward as are his recipes and descriptions for executing them properly. He even made the seemingly frightening challa bread easy to make. There were not enough pictures, but that's not saying much coming from me because there are never enough pictures for me in cookbooks....ever. But I read it and enjoyed it all the same and should you, my friend, ever be invited to a Shabbat party, I highly recommend this book for all your baking needs.

The bread went over wonderfully, in case you were wondering. With all the fuss of making falafels, chatting, consuming tasty feta, drinking lots of wine and beer, and all of the above mentioned festivities, by the time we got around to dessert it was a little late. Some people were pulling out their coats and there was a definate end of party feel going on. Determined to serve my bread (I think at that point I was calling it cake...), I asked that everyone please humour me and eat a piece. My most favorite response was from the girl who reluctanly took a piece explaining how she did not really like cake but would try it...she didn't have much choice as I was shoving a piece in her hand then immediately regretting it because I was in no mood for rejection. I sliced a couple more pieces for everyone then turned to see how my reluctant cake eater was doing...well, half the cake was gone and she was genuinly giving compliments to the chef. By the time she was out the door her cake/bread was gone and everyone left was sitting around eating it and finishing their last sips of wine. The bread seemed to please everyone without being over-the-top extravagnat. And the cashew pecan butter that I made on the spot seemed to give it that extra special somthing; lucky for me it took all of 2 mintues to make. And speaking personally, it made an excellent breakfast the next morning.

The recipe as follows is exactly how it appears in the book except for the substitutions, but I have quoted the original beside it just in case you are not in it for the vegan aspects, or were considering making snide remarks about plagiarism. I have also included the recipe for homemade pecan cashew butter that tastes excellent when smeared across a warm slice of this delicious orange pecan goodness. Shabbat Shalom!

you will need these:
large mixing bowl (or mixer)
wooden spoon


Orange Pecan Bread

2 T neutral tasting vegetable oil (or 2 T unsalted butter or margarine, softened)
1/2 C agave nectar or maple syrup (or brown sugar)
1/2 turbinado sugar (or regular works fine too)
juice and grated zest of 1 orange plus enough water to make 3/4 C
2 T apple cider vinegar (1 egg beaten)
1 1/2 C unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 C whole wheat flour, preferable stone ground
11/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 C coarsly chopped pecans
6 pecan halves, for topping (optional)

pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

in a large bowl cream together the oil (butter) and sugars/sweetners

beat the juice mixture and vinegar (egg) until smooth

add the flours, baking powder, soda and salt and mix throughly

fold in the pecans

grease 2 8 or 9 inch leaf pans (or bundt pan) and line them with parchment or waxed paper

grease the bottoms again and dust them with four

turn the batter into the prepared pans

place pecan halves decoratively on top

bake until browned and the center feels firm when gently pressed with your fingertips- 50-60 minutes

let cool for 5-10 minutes in the pans, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely



Homemade Pecan Cashew butter: (amounts can vary here....it will be tasty no matter what)

1/2 C raw cashews
1/3 C raw pecans
seeds of 1 vanilla bean or 1 tsp alcohol-free vanilla
1 T maple syrup
pinch of sea salt

*could even add some orange zest if you were feeling saucy...

pulse this together in a food processor until it forms a nice creamy butter-like consistency. spread across anything and everything or simply eat it straight from the bowl with a spoon.