To review, Michelle over at Big Black Dog, organized a group to bake from the book by Dr. Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe François, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

I’m a day late and quite probably more than a dollar short, to get this post up with our assigned Red Beet Buns in honor of Valentine’s Day. And yes, I skipped the Chocolate Espresso Bread – I just couldn’t do another sweet after MJ said to me: “You’ve been baking sweets since November!” Not exactly part of our healthy diet plan.

And even though I hate beets, when presented with a couple of free ones from my friend’s CSA box, it was obvious that the fates conspired to force me to make the assigned Red Beet Buns. So I made a quarter recipe and decided to at least get a little creative with the shaping, in line with the theme. So I pulled out my hearts and roses mini-bundt pans and squooshed the dough into each of the little compartments.

Although the dough rose quite nicely in the container after mixing, I was a bit disappointed in the lack of rise in the finished, baked product.

Probably had something to do with all the squooshing I did to ensure that that the baked “buns” would acquire the detail from the forms. Although smaller than I’d hoped for, they did bake through properly.

I sliced the roses and left the hearts whole and toasted them for Valentine’s Day breakfast, which (to me) improved the flavor, and filled them with vegetable cream cheese. The indentations in the heart-shaped ones lent themselves particularly well for filling!

Okay, they didn’t taste beet-y, and although they were a hit with MJ, I probably won’t be making these again because, well, because, you know, beets.

Please visit our current Bread Braid and see what others have been doing with our latest assignment!