Apricot Bread, a Twelve Loaves Baking Challenge

Do you want to enjoy the company of other bakers while you are on your own in your kitchen? Join up with Twelve Loaves, a baking challenge run by some talented bloggers that is based on the idea of baking a new loaf of bread every month. There is a feeling of community knowing that others are baking with a common goal.  Share your creation then be inspired and impressed by the breads made by the group. The August challenge was Bread with Summer Fruit. Check out the groups’ efforts at this link up. Thanks to Barb at Creative Culinary for her post which shared this idea with me.

Now on to this apricot bread. I was hoping that an apricot bread would turn out similar to a banana bread. If I pureed the apricots and mixed them into the batter as I would normally do with mashed bananas, the bread would be moist yet not too heavy. Success was helped along with this recipe I found online for apricot bread.  I modified that recipe to fit closer in line with a banana bread recipe I like and this is how it all worked out—beautifully!

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup canola oil
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
6-8 apricots, halved and pitted

Directions: Puree the apricots, leave some pieces visible if you’d like more texture in the bread.

Combine the dry ingredients (flour through salt). Then separately mix the sugar and oil along with the eggs and vanilla. Add in the apricot puree.

Mix together the dry and wet ingredients until just combined. Pour into a greased loaf pan.
Bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes.

Here are the official rules from The Cake Duchess:
Our very first Twelve Loaves theme for the month of August is:
Bread with Summer Fruit
Bake a bread, yeast or quick bread, loaf or individual, filled, stuffed, studded or topped with your favorite fresh summer fruit or berries. It’s your bread…we want you to have fun with the idea!Lisa baked a gorgeous Chocolate Chunk Strawberry Malted Bread and Jamie made a delightful Cherry Chocolate Chip Maple Challah. Lizzy baked a beautiful Blueberry-Peach Bread with a Limoncello Glaze.
Just follow the rules, it’s as easy as pie:
1. When you post your Twelve Loaves bread on your blog, make sure that you mention the Twelve Loaves challenge in your post and mention and  link back to this blog post; this helps us to get more members as well as share everyone’s posts. Please make sure that your Bread is inspired by the theme! This is obligatory if you would like your link to be included!
2. Please link your post to the linky tool at the bottom of my blog. It must be a bread baked to the Twelve Loaves theme.
3. Have your Twelve Loaves bread that you baked this August, 2012 posted on your blog by August 31, 2012.
Do you tweet? We sure do!
Follow @TwelveLoaves on Twitter

I link up here:
http://www.houseofhepworths.com/
http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/
http://www.livelaughrowe.com/