Blueberry Bread

This is my favorite kind of stupid-easy recipe. Not only is it truly stupid-easy, but it’s handed-down stupid-easy. It’s stupid-easy with history, People, and that’s the best kind!

I was given this recipe by my adopted grandmother. This woman is truly the embodiment of grandmotherly loveliness, and she’s a practiced hand in the kitchen. She makes this recipe a lot - as do I - because it’s both easy and versatile. One doesn’t need blueberries - one can use pretty much ANY yummy filler - or none at all; one can make a cake or a loaf or cupcakes; one can eat this as dessert or a snack or breakfast. Truly, it’s culinary acrobatics at its finest, and here’s how you do it:

Set your oven to 350° and either grease and flour your pans or line cupcake tins with papers and set aside. Cream together a stick of butter with one egg and a cup of sugar and set aside. Sift together 2 cups of flour, 2 teaspoons of baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon of salt, then pour, into a separate container (I use my Pyrex measuring cup), one cup of milk with a good blop of vanilla extract (the recipe calls for 1 teaspoon, but I’m SURE I use more than that; I never measure it and I have a particular affinity for vanilla). Bring the butter mixture back and add the flour and milk alternately until all the ingredients are combined. Fold in about 2 and 1/2 cups of blueberries (or whatever mix-in you’re adding) and turn the batter into whatever cooking vessel you’ve prepared. Sprinkle the top with sugar, if you’re into that sort of thing - and bake in the center of the oven for about 30 minutes for the loaf pan; your baking time will be decidedly less - only about 11 minutes or so - if you’re baking in a cake pan or cupcakes, so keep an eye on them. They are done with the toothpick test.

I make this most often with blueberries, but I’ve also had fantastical luck with cinnamon and brown sugar swirled through, chunks of peaches, strawberries, and even rhubarb and raspberries. It is a consistent winner, and I hope you enjoy it half as much as we do.

Rhubarb-Pecan Bread

A few years ago, I took a graduate class titled “Literature in Early America.” The class was taught by an amiable professor who also happens to be one of the country’s leading experts in Shaker history, literature, and culture. The class covered a whole lot of other literary traditions, but that little group figured heavily into the mix.

The class was a lot of fun, not only because the professor was a lot of fun, but because he was genuinely interested in allowing us to learn in ways that made sense to us; he didn’t prescribe assignments so much as make suggestions for our investigation. For example, one of the projects he offered up was a gravestone study. We studied the art and iconography of colonial gravestones! In a LIT class! It was fantastic! I got to research on of my (adopted) ancestor’s stones in a nearby town and wrote quite convincingly that his stone was more ornate and larger than his parents’ simple carved boulders because he managed to achieve a much higher status in the community; he became a Supreme Court judge - one of the first in the colony.

But I digress…

The final project for the class was left almost entirely up to the discretion of the student, and I decided that I would study the Shakers. We have a couple of Shaker villages in New England - one of which is still a living community - and I’ve always been interested in their art and, more importantly, their cuisine. I came up with the idea to do my final project around a Shaker meal, that I would cook for my class, and relate the idea of cooking to the foundation and maintenance of family. In Shaker tradition, the group is considered a family, and that concept of relation is essential to their community and their faith. I would investigate how cooking and sharing meals together helps to create and strengthen familial bonds, and then connect all that to some poetry and songs that the Shakers hold as foundational to their faith.

My professor loved the idea (as did my classmates, who were looking forward to a home-cooked meal in class). After an introduction to Sister Frances through my professor, I was invited to spend a day in the kitchen, helping her prepare the noon meal for the family. We talked about her history in the kitchen, we talked about my children and my schooling and my plans to be a teacher (doesn’t she just look like a friendly grandma who would ask me about such things?). We baked chickens and peeled potatoes. We set the table, said prayers with the family, and ate together. We had a lovely afternoon and, when it was all over, I left with a couple of recipes and some memories that I pull out every spring around rhubarb season.

One of the recipes I was given was this one. It’s for a quick bread whose main flavors are rhubarb and pecan, and it’s fantastically yummy (and easy; remember what I said about how much I love yummy and easy?). Because good things should ALWAYS be shared, I’m sharing this - another of my favorite recipes - with you.

Rhubarb Pecan Bread

Preset your oven to 350•

1 1/2c brown sugar
1 beaten egg
2/3c vegetable oil

Combine these in a large bowl and set aside.

1t baking soda
1t vanilla
1c buttermilk
1t salt

Whisk these together in a measuring bowl.

Measure out 2 1/2 c flour and add to the sugar, egg, and oil, alternating with the milk mixture.

Stir in 1/2c chopped pecans and 1 1/2c chopped rhubarb (I usually add more rhubarb than that, but that’s just me).

Pour into greased and floured pans, sprinkle with sugar, and bake 1 hour or until the loaves test done. I tend to bake these in mini-loaf pans, so they’re portable and giftable.

(*I nailed the final assignment. I brought in Shaker fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and scallions, the rhubarb bread and a Mother Ann cake. How could I POSSIBLY get a bad grade for that?)