Or, “What To Do With Smoothie Remnants?”
By John Valencia
We call this my “Smoothie Sludge Bread!”
The hiccup is that it requires the pulp leftover from my daily juices. But I guess if people do some juicing, then they’d have it on hand. And the backstory is really just that: I had this leftover pulp from my smoothies, and it seemed wasteful to just throw it in the garbage disposal, and we don’t compost. So this is the perfect use for it, and it makes undeniably delicious and healthy bread.
First, the bread recipe:
Bread Ingredients
Dry
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 cup chopped nuts (mashed almonds, flax seeds, raisins, dried cranberries, chia seeds, etc.)
Wet
- 2 ripe bananas
- Mashed 2 cups smoothie pulp (fruit/veg blend — excess liquid squeezed out using a clean dish towel)
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- ⅓ cup melted butter
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Directions
Prep
- Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C)
- Grease pan with butter
- Squeeze moisture from pulp with a clean towel so it isn’t too wet
Dry mix
In medium bowl: whisk flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.
Wet mix
In large bowl: mash bananas, add fruit/veggie pulp, brown sugar, egg, melted butter, vanilla. Stir until just combined (don’t overmix).
Combine
Fold dry ingredients into wet until just incorporated. Fold in the nuts and other add-ins.
Bake
Pour into loaf pan; bake 55-65 minutes.
Check at 50 minutes. A butter knife should come out mostly clean, but with some moist crumbs on the knife. It’s ok to be overly cautious and do multiple knife checks every 4 or 5 minutes to make sure it doesn’t bake too long and go dry.
Cool
Rest in pan 10 minutes, then remove and cool fully on a rack for a couple of hours before slicing.
Second, here is a pretty standard smoothie I make (but all types work for the bread):
Smoothie Ingredients
- Apple
- ½ lemon (including rind)
- Asparagus
- Red beets
- Carrots
- Ginger root
- Cucumber
- Blueberries
Use your imagination – there really isn’t any fruit or veggie off limits!
