Kumquat Bread

We are blessed with many awesome fruit treet in our yard. They were all planted less than 10 years ago, so the fruit quantity is not yet over-whelming but just enough for us to enjoy the hand picked to tummy sweet taste year around. 

We enjoy pomegranates in the fall, figs and plums in the summer and meyer lemons throughout half the year. And there is hardly a fruit to spare on the tree!

One exception to this is our trooper kumquat tree. This year it was raining kumquats in our household. Kumquat is a citrus family tree which produces very small (think jujube or dates size) pungent fruit. The skin is very sweet but the flesh is slightly sour. You pop the whole fruit in your mouth. 

For last few months we are snacking kumquats, chopping and adding them to salads and topping them on pizzas but still the tree is laden with fruit - so much so that it recently started bending due to the weight of the fruit. Finally just as it looked at risk of not bearing new spring blossom, I was forced to pick all the fruit and we ended up with 3 (!!) large colander full!

I am thinking hard of ways to use this and decided to try two things: 1) a kumquat bread and 2) a kumquat marmalade. 

We tried the bread yesterday and it was a super hit! I used my trusty banana bread recipe just substitute chopped kumquats instead of banana, keeping the rest same. 

And we all liked it better than banana bread - the tanginess of kumquats paired really well with the otherwise sweet bread. This is one of our keeper recipe now and I plan to make a few more batches next week to hand over to friends during a potluck lunch.

Kumquat Bread:
Ingredients:
18-20 kumquats chopped (remove any big seeds which come out easily)
1.5C all purpose flour
1/2C sugar (see note)
3Tbsp melted butter + 2Tbsp vegetable oil
2tsp vanilla extract
1 beaten egg
1/4C milk
1/4tsp salt (see note)
1tsp baking soda

Recipe:

  1. Add beaten egg, melted butter, vanilla extract and milk to chopped fruit and mix well. 
  2. Mix dry ingredients -flour, salt, sugar and baking soda.
  3. Pre-heat oven to 360. Lightly butter a bread pan.
  4. Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well.
  5. Pour into the bread pan and bake for 1 hour.
  6. Remove from oven, let cool for 10mins and then remove from pan, slice and enjoy with a cup of coffee!

Notes:

  • We like our bread on the less sweet side, but you are welcome to increase the sugar to 3/4 C if you like bread of sweeter side. 
  • Please do not skip the salt - it's essential to the balance of flavors in this recipe.
  • Kumquat seeds are generally very small and okay to eat. I only take out the seeds if I see any big once.
Found one kumquat winner recipe - now trying the next one kumquat marmalade - wish me luck :)