Avocado and Lime Bread

Do you ever make something purely because you cannot fathom how the heck it will work, or why anyone would have ever though of putting those things together and eating them? That's how I ended up making this bread. Avocados were on a killer sale (which doesn't happen often where I live), and I was about guacamole-d out so I was wandering around the internet looking at approximately 14 million avocado recipes.

And then I saw this. And said right out loud, "Wait. What? That's goofy!" And I knew I had to make it. Recipe comes from My Kitchen Affair.

The only change I made was to use sunflower seeds instead of pumpkin seeds. Everything else I did exactly as it said, mostly because I was worried it wasn't going to turn out if I didn't. Whole wheat flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, pure maple syrup, an egg, and of course avocados and a lime. Who would've ever guessed you could make bread out of that?

First step is to mash the avocado, and mix it with the lime zest and juice, syrup, and sugar. 

Then you beat in the egg and water. What you get is more liquid than anything like what you'd think would end up making bread.

Of course, you still have to beat in the flour, which helps. But it's still ridiculously liquid. More like cake batter... but then as we know cake batter comes out of the oven solid. I figured the only thing that would really hurt me to have wasted is my maple syrup, but I could deal with it if it didn't work.

The directions say to line your pan with parchment and then oil it. I skipped all that nonsense and just used Pam for baking (no, they don't pay me to wax poetic about how wonderful the product is, but I'm gonna do it again: Best baking spray ever!). After I poured the batter in the pan and smoothed the top, I sprinkled some unknown amount of sunflower seeds on top until it looked like about enough.

It's a good thing I was doing the toothpick test, because if it hadn't come out clean I probably would have baked this for another hour and ended up burning the heck out of it. Describing this bread as "moist" is one of the biggest understatements possible. I really thought it was still raw when I took it out of the oven, because it still jiggled a little.

The problem, I think, is the very unspecific amounts. I ended up with about 1 1/2 cups of avocado and 1/4 cup of lime juice, which I think was too much for how little dry ingredients there are. Next time (and there will be a next time) I'll cut back a little on liquids to see if it comes out better.

It's not that it wasn't possible to get it out of the pan, it's that it was barely two inches tall, and you couldn't really pick it up to eat it. Very dense, and very moist, and definitely didn't break apart like bread normally does. Instead, it fell apart if you tried to pick up a slice. But my goodness was it tasty! The trouble is it's so good you want to eat a lot of it, which is not really a good idea with avocados. Without turning a post about food into something completely different, let's just say that eating too much of this bread can lead to some gastrointestinal... issues.

See what I mean? Dense! You can almost see how squidgy it is in the picture, too. One thing I did discover is that this should be stored in the refrigerator. I left mine on the counter covered in plastic wrap, and ended up having to throw away the last about 1/4 of the loaf after three days because it was starting to mold. I hate when that happens!

Side note: I chose to mix the salt and baking powder with the flour, because the recipe doesn't actually say what to do with it.

Avocado and Lime Bread

Serves 12

1 and 1/2 avocado
juice and zest from 1 lime
2 Tbsp maple syrup
3/4 cup (165 g) light brown sugar
1 egg
5 Tbsp water
1 cup (120 g) whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
pumpkin seeds
Recipe from: My Kitchen Affair. I am wildly curious how they got their bread to come out looking like bread!

Serving Size: 58 g

Calories: 138

Calories from Fat: 46

Total Fat: 5.1 g

Saturated Fat: 1.1 g

Trans Fat: 0.0 g

Cholesterol: 16 mg

Sodium: 71 mg

Total Carbohydrates: 21.6 g

Dietary Fiber: 1.7 g

Sugars: 11.0 g

Protein: 2.5 g

*Nutrition information is tricky, since it doesn't really give very specific amounts of avocado and lime, and of course doesn't even guess how many pumpkin seeds. I sort of winged it so I could put it into the database and come up with a general idea. Please don't consider this gospel, though, because I was guessing.