Maple Syrup Bread

This is an expensive recipe since Maple Syrup is the most expensive thing I ever buy. I modified Mark Bitmman's "Quick Whole Wheat and Mollasaes Bread" to get this recipe because I really, really can't stand molasses and it turned out great!

I'll pretend I made it in honor of Maple Sunday here in Maine (a couple of weeks ago now). This year's been a bad year for the maple syrup makers. The farmers tap the tress but they need cold nights and warm days in order for the sap to flow in the trees. It's been so cold during the day that the sap isn't flowing so there was hardly any maple syrup from this year for Maple Sunday.

Ingredients
1 1/2 c. milk warmed (microwaved for a minute) (or if you have it, butter milk)
2 T vinegar, white (apple cider vinegar or lemon juice would likely work as well)
1/2 c. maple syrup (not pancake syrup)
2 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 c. cornmeal
1 t salt
1 t baking soda (box)

Instructions: Make "buttermilk" by mixing 1 1/2 c. warm milk with 2 T white vinegar. Let the "buttermilk" rest, it will curdle a bit and that is okay. Combine the dry ingredients. Add 1/2 c. maple syrup and the butter milk. Pour into greased loaf pan and bake at 325º for one hour. (I always turn my baked goods around in the oven when they're halfway done.)

Hubs loved this. It was a very hearty bread and it was more like regular bread with yeast than like other quick breads. FYI Hubs thinks its snobby to say and prefer maple syrup over pancake syrup. But I think that's just being accurate since Maple syrup is made from tree sap and pancake syrup is maple flavored corn syrup. I can notice a real difference between the texture of two and I assume maple syrup is better for me because its less processed than pancake syrup.

I've been getting nutrition facts for my recipes from Calorie Counts' Recipe Analyzer. You copy and past a recipe in to the text field and it generates nutrition facts like the above for you! I also use MyFitnessPal to count calories and they have changed their Recipes section to make it easier to use! If you found a recipe on a website, it lets you import it by just copying and paying the URL. With both you'll likely have to clean up the recipe before it's finalized but both of these make it so much easier to keep track of calories and other nutrients when you cook from scratch.

Enjoy!