stale bread from maltese parakeet

in searching for some food blogs to read regularly, i ran across an obsession with food. i quite like it; it's a pretty good read. but i was really intrigued when aowf introduced me to is my blog burning and its themed blog posts. aowf is hosting imbb 25: stale bread this weekend. since this is pretty much like the themes that we do here on peanut butter etouffee, i asked my blogmates if they would like to try and they enthusiastically agreed. so, here's my post and doodles' and mooncrazy's follow. i think i speak for the group when i say that we really enjoyed doing this and our husbands (or co-workers, in my case) , as the main consumers of the end product of our efforts, really enjoyed it too!

i initally thought i would make some bread pudding with the stale bread, but i recently made that, so i wanted to try something new. i came upon my stale bread idea from one of the podcasts that i listen to regularly, the podchef's gastrocast. back in march, he made a sicilian blood orange cake using bread crumbs and almond meal instead of flour. i'd never used this method before and i'd been dying to try it, so this was the perfect opportunity.

the recipe calls for four ounces of bread crumbs but seven ounces of almond meal. i found myself wondering if this would be judged like iron chef and worried that i would hear a japanese lower house minister say, "it's good, but i can't taste the theme ingredient." anyway, back to the bread crumbs... i used a few french sandwich rolls to make the crumbs, cutting them into cubes and letting them set out for a day or two to get stale. then i threw them in the food processor to get the crumb stage. since these bread crumbs were going to be used for a cake, i removed the crusts before i buzzed up the crumbs in the processor so that i would have a more delicate texture.

i didn't take any prep pictures, but here's the final product:



a few comments on the recipe and the outcome. this recipe uses a lot of sugar and oil and eggs. it is not low fat or low carb in any way shape or form. that being said, who cares? it was really tasty. the blood orange syrup soaking stage made the cake really moist and flavorful. but i had some extra batter and made some cupcakes on the side, so i can confirm that the cake was moist and tasty even without the syrup. the bread crumbs gave the cake a nice texture and i believe made the cake sturdy enough to stand up to the syrup. the sugar in the recipe made for nice carmelization on top of the cake which looked good, tasted better and added a nice texture to the outside of the cake. however, that carmelization action also got the cake good and stuck to the sides of the pan; without the greased pan and the parchment in the bottom, i don't believe i would have been able to get this cake out of the pan. so, don't skip that step in the recipe and be sure to run a knife along the edge of the pan before you attempt to dislodge the cake. i only know this because the cupcakes all got stuck, but i've been eating them out of the cupcake tin with a spoon all week, so it's all good! i am definitely going to make this cake again. i am looking forward to playing with some of the ingredients, i think lemon might be a good citrus to use to counteract some of the sweetness.



anyway, thanks to the podchef for this great recipe. i highly recommend this cake.