Paleo-friendly Carrot Pulp Bread - 1st Attempt

Disclaimer: This recipe didn't really fail, but it wasn't that good. This is labeled "1st Attempt" for a reason. I will revisit this recipe soon and try to fix it. Try it if you like, but read through this whole post and please tweak the recipe (as I suggest at the bottom or in your own way). And if you find a more successful way of doing this, please let me know!

Brent and I make two cups (one cup for each of us) of fresh carrot juice nearly every morning using our juicer, a pile of peeled carrots and 1 lemon. One of these days I might actually measure it out and post it, but today I want to talk about the pulp, not the juice.

Pulp from juicing... what do you do with it? This question first crossed my mind months ago, when we bought our juicer and made our first batch of juice. It pained me to just toss all that pulp in the trash. Brent soon after started a compost pile. Ok, that helped for a little while, but the compost container filled up quickly. So, we Googled it. I found breads, muffins, and other fun recipes. The only problem was that they were not Paleo-friendly.

Then last week, I was bubbling around online, scanning Paleo blogs and sites looking for inspiration, and I saw something that made me drool on Paleomg.com: Banana Bread French Toast. WOW, it looks amazing. I haven't tried it yet, but it gave me an idea. Why not use this Paleo-friendly banana bread recipe as a template for a carrot pulp bread? I searched online also for a basic carrot pulp bread recipe, and last night I did my best to blend the two to make a paleo-friendly carrot pulp bread.

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus a little extra to grease the pan
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons of maple syrup
• 1 and 1/2 cup carrot pulp
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 and 1/2 cup flaxseed meal
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon coarse Kosher salt (sea salt would probably be better, but I don't have that in the pantry)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Whisk the oil, eggs, and maple syrup together in a large bowl.
3. Then mix in the carrot pulp into the other wet ingredients.
4. Mix in a separate medium bowl the flaxseed meal, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.
5. Mix the dry ingredients into the large bowl of wet ingredients. 
6. Grease the bread pan with extra virgin olive oil (I used a pastry brush to do this).
7. Pour the bread batter into the pan and place into the oven.
8. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes.

As I mentioned in the disclaimer at the top, this wasn't a total flop, but it wasn't all that good. I started with cooking it just for 30 minutes. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough, so I kept cooking it in 10 minute increments. Finally, at 60 minutes I realized that my bread wasn't undercooked, it was simply insanely moist. All that oil... yea, it was too much.

So, how will I try to fix this recipe in the near future? Here are a few of my ideas (a special thanks to my friend who tasted the bread today at work and helped me brainstorm ideas for fixing it):

• use a LOT LESS olive oil
• add a little almond or coconut flour (flaxseed has a lot of natural oils so the flaxseed meal was naturally a little oily to begin with, so adding a dryer flour or meal would help balance out things)
• add a little more vanilla extract
• add a little nutmeg
• add some walnuts and/or raisins for texture and interest

I'll post an improved recipe as soon as I perfect this. In the meantime, if any of your wonderful readers out there have ideas for fixing it or want to play around with the recipe yourselves and come up with some great ideas, share please!