Matcha Monkey Bread with Pistachio

This overnight sweet brunch bread is a perfect way to start off a St Patrick's Day celebration. Delicately, naturally, green from matcha powder, this monkey bread is rolled in pistachios for flavor and crunch.

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I like to celebrate holidays with food, even if it's not a holiday I claim as my birthright. I'll make Pumpkin Cranberry Maple Kugel even though I'm not Jewish, and Corned Beef, Cabbage & Dubliner Pizza although my People went a viking to the Emerald Isle then returned home to Scandinavia. It's fun to celebrate with food, especially colorful food. Recently I shared an attempt at green muffins that did not work out exactly as I'd hoped--even if they were tasty!

One surefire way to have naturally-colored baked goods is to make the dough ahead of time, letting it rest in the fridge. This allows the color to deepen, and has worked for me with several Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share vegetables. It seems, in my experience, that a cooked vegetable as part of the moisture for a yeasted dough results in vibrant breads. My two favorite examples, so far, are my three color Mardi Gras Braided Bread and my bicolor Overnight Sweet Potato Pecan Monkey Bread. Today's recipe is a fusion of those two--taking the green matcha dough from the Mardi Gras bread and baking it in the manner of the monkey bread. I kept up the green theme by using pistachios in place of pecans, but this recipe remains inspired by the book Make Ahead Bread by Donna Currie.

Mardi Gras Bread

This festive bread is naturally colored with sweet potatoes and green tea to make a sweet braided loaf that's fun and nutritious. A wholesome way to let the good times roll.

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One of the awesome joys of being part of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share is getting my mittens on brilliantly colored vegetables, then playing around with them to make neat things. Often, if you're not already enjoying a farm share or farmer's market, I'll tell you you're S.O.L. in terms of finding unique vegetables.

Not this time. You could hit a regular grocery store and make this bread.

For more recipes using sweet potatoes, please see my Sweet Potato Recipe Collection. It's part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me whose farmers grow delicious sweet potatoes that end up hanging out in my Strategic Winter Squash Reserve waiting to jump into game day appetizers and chili. Want more recipe ideas? Follow me on Pinterest. Want interesting articles that catch my eye? Follow my FB page. Want snapshots of my day? Follow me on Instagram. Want to know How To Use This Blog? Want to come clean my house? Pretty please?

Overnight Sweet Potato Pecan Monkey Bread

A colorful brunch bread using purple and orange sweet potatoes in an enriched dough. This bread is made in short sessions--make the dough and assemble the bread one day, bake when you're ready.

Apologies to Esther Dean** but, . . . na na na come on. Na nana nana come on, come on, come on

Cause I rarely bake, but I'm perfectly good at it

Yeast in the air, I don't care, I love the smell of it

Baking stones make break, so Ode, but preferments excite me

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I'm much happier when my kitchen sessions happen in small chunks--make the pesto one day, freeze it, use it throughout the winter. Caramelize onions in the crock pot, use them in quick meals. Make pizza dough when I have time earlier in the week, enjoy a homemade pizza on Friday night. An entire book devoted to this method, Make Ahead Bread by Donna Currie, is a great idea. I've ordered my copy--to donate to my local library so more folks get to play than just me. You can see more info about the book via this Amazon affiliate link.

There is just something soul-warming about tearing off a hunk of sweet bread and stuffing it into your mouth. The way it seems to melt on your tongue as you begin to chew is so satisfying. I imagine all of the recipe testing involved in writing a book about bread would be an interesting mix of pleasure and chore, and kudos to Donna Currie for slogging through the chore aspect to create this achievement.

As we most often eat Multigrain Sourdough bread, I relegate the chore of preparing our standard loaf to my bread machine. I consider our daily bread to be more utilitarian in nature and don't really think about the craft of baking bread. When I heard about the movement to mark the first anniversary of Make Ahead Bread, (Amazon affiliate link) with a virtual book party, I knew I wanted in.

To drum up interest in a newly-released book, publishers will encourage bloggers to choose from a carefully-selected group of recipes for their posts. When I saw Donna's Sweet Potato Monkey Bread on the list I figured I'd use my purple farm share sweet potatoes in it. At the next Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share pick up I was describing my plans and Cara of fairly simple suggested making the monkey bread with a mixture of orange and purple sweet potatoes. Great idea!

Because I was making 2 doughs at the same time, I figured I'd use my mixer for one and the dough cycle of the bread machine for the other. Since the temperature of my kitchen ranges from really cold in the winter to really hot in the summer, using the bread machine year round provides a nice climate controlled environment each and every time. The dough in the machine rose twice as fast as the dough in my straight sided bucket.

[Note for new bread bakers--if you've got a straight sided bucket it makes the whole 'rise until double' thing easy to see. Simply dump in the dough, grab a ruler, and stick a piece of tape where 'double' should be. Then keep an eye on the dough until it hits the tape mark.]

This photo shows the Whole Wheat and Parmesan pizza crust as well as the monkey bread doughs.

For more recipes using sweet potatoes, please see my Sweet Potato Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. This page is a resource for folks like me eating seasonally from the farm share, the farmer's market, or garden abundance. Organizing by produce type appeals to my "I've got _______, what can I do with it?" mentality. I've got a board devoted to potatoes on Pinterest, and I'm sharing the latest from the kitchen and garden on my FB page. Want to know how to use this blog? Click here.

Whole Wheat & Parmesan Pizza Crust from Make Ahead Bread

Trigger warning: carbs. Lots of them. In oh so delicious ways. (insert Homer Simpson noises)

A pizza crust chock full of flavor from parmesan cheese, with a great chewy texture thanks to the addition of whole wheat flour. This recipe is made in stages, so when you've got a couple small chunks of time you'll end up with easy homemade pizza.

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When I am invited to spread the word about a new cookbook I am not encouraged to randomly share any old recipe that strikes my fancy from the book. Instead, publishers give us bloggers an approved selection of recipes and ask us to pick from that list. If there's a recipe using a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share-sourced ingredient, or something that fits with my blog and appeals to my family, I'm glad to participate.

Last time I shared a brand new cookbook all about macaroni and cheese called Melt: The Art of Macaroni and Cheese (Amazon affiliate link). I did so because I could use a farm share pumpkin, filled with macaroni and cheese, as a recipe. That was a fun challenge and amazingly delicious. The flavor combo was so inspiring I went on to share 2 more variations on that theme, Macaroni and Cheese with Beet Greens, Ham and Manchego and Macaroni and Cheese with Roasted Winter Squash.

Today, and for my next post, I am sharing recipes from Donna Currie's book Make Ahead Bread: 100 Recipes for Melt-in-Your-Mouth Fresh Bread Every Day(Amazon affiliate link) in honor of the first anniversary of publication.

Looking through the assortment of publisher-selected recipes it was hard to narrow it down to one. So I didn't. Today, being a Friday and a traditional Pizza Night for our family I am sharing Donna's Whole Wheat & Parmesan Pizza Crust. Monday I've got a photogenic brunch treat with bicolor Sweet Potato and Pecan Monkey Bread. Again I've found recipes that use farm share-sourced ingredients as well as recipes that fit in with my blog and boy do they appeal to my family!

As I noted at the top, there's a trigger warning about carbs on this post. Looking through the recipes from Donna's book made me want to BAKE ALL THE THINGS! In fact, as I mentioned on my FB page, I weighed out more than 3 pounds of flour while baking on Saturday. And more on Sunday. I gave away bread to my neighbors, friends, and even my son's ACT test proctor because the kids and I were getting swamped with all of these yummy goodies and I am inspired to try more variations.

I'm baking like a fiend [do fiends bake? Maybe they'd be less fiendish if they did] so that on Tuesday, the one year anniversary of publication of Make Ahead Bread (Amazon affiliate link, still) my recipes will be added to a round up of recipes shared on Mother Would Know. Then we hope you buy a copy for yourself, for your local library, or for someone who will bake for you!

Needs a bit more kneading--this is when I added the salt and cheese.

For more pizzas ideas, since I fix one for my family nearly every Friday night, please see my Visual Pizza Recipe Index. I've got it broken down into pizza doughs (where this recipe will land), savory pizzas using fruit, vegetarian pizzas, and pizzas with meat toppings. I've got a Pinterest board of pizza ideas from around the web. On my FB page I often share what's going on in the kitchen as well as recipes and round ups that catch my eye. Want to know how to use this blog? Click here.