Soup can bread.

I mentioned last week that Santa had brought me a generous set of bakeware, and here's part of it!

Nah, just joshing with jests and japery.

I've been baking a lot for the last month and a half, but now with the new year and the plan to fit into my favorite suit by Easter, I'm winding down. Not for me the guillotine of the new year, though; I'm just not adding to the fattening stuff whilst consuming (or donating) what is left. I'm not on the Dr. Nowzaradan plan.

But all month I've been wanting to make a recipe I came across while digging out recipes for the holidays. It's for soup can bread, that is, bread made in soup cans. It was given to me close to twenty years ago by a member of the family since gone to her maker, and I've always wanted to try it. Well, that day was yesterday.

What is soup can bread? Obviously a bread baked in empty cans of soup, but why? I don't really know. I think my beloved relative remembered this as something done in the Depression -- definitely not a camping recipe as the lady hated camping, but something she remembered from her youth. It would seem to be a handy thing for those too poor for proper bread pans. I did a search and found recipes for the like online, but did not find an explanation as to why one would want to bake in cans used for soup.

Regardless, once the cold weather set in and we'd had some canned soup, I was determined to give this a try. Her recipe, which I believe she found in a magazine or newspaper (having no old family recipe to pass on), is a peanut butter-based bread with whole wheat and all-purpose flour, a touch of cinnamon, and dark brown sugar. I'll write out the whole thing below. If you are the magazine or newspaper who ran this recipe, please let me know so I can give you proper credit.

First, I cleaned out the four cans, trimmed off the top rim with a side-cut can opener, peeled the label, and ran them through the dishwasher. I mixed the ingredients up, distributed it in the greased soup cans, baked as indicated, and this is what I got:

Yeah, I know.

After it cooled off I tried some, a small piece unadorned, a small piece with butter, and a small piece with preserves (PB&J seeming like a natural with this). I liked the flavor; the PB was mild. It was dry, as you might imagine with whole-wheat bread and no yeast, and was better with butter and very nice with jam. If you like a bran muffin or wheat toast you might like this. I had some for breakfast this morning and it was still good. I'm sure you could add nuts or raisins, and I think I'd up the cinnamon if I did it again.

If you want to give it a try, here's the full recipe. Please let me know how you make out!

SOUP CAN PB BREAD

Ingredients
Dry:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Wet:
1 cup peanut butter
2 Tbsp butter, room temperature
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup plus 2 Tbsp milk

Heat oven to 350°F. Spray cans with Pam or its equivalent. (I used standard Campbell's condensed soup cans.) Mix up your dry ingredients thoroughly -- the recipe didn't say to sift them, so I didn't. Use an electric mixer on medium speed to beat the PB, butter, and brown sugar until fluffy, a minute or so. Beat in egg. Run mixer on low and alternate dry ingredients and milk, starting and ending with flour mixture. Divide batter evenly among cans; place cans on baking sheet and bake 40 minutes. Bread will rise above top of cans. You can do the toothpick test if you're concerned. Cool in cans 10 minutes, then ease out of cans. If they stick, run a thin knife around the bread; if they really stick, cut off the bottom lid and ease bread out. Cool completely.

You can also bake this in a single 9x5-inch loaf pan; just bake for 50-55 minutes. You probably will have to do the toothpick test to make sure the loaf is fully baked.