Try this vintage peanut butter bread recipe from World War I
Attention banana bread fans, there's another simple loaf recipe on the rise that might just be the next baking trend during quarantine.
While people continue to bake at home more than ever amid the coronavirus pandemic, the National WWI Museum and Memorial released a recipe for peanut butter bread that hearkens back to another era of resourceful cooking with minimal ingredients.
Lora Vogt, curator of education at the National WWI Museum and Memorial, told "Good Morning America" that "the peanut butter bread recipe relies on inexpensive, pantry staples that have been readily available for more than 100 years."
"Ultimately, recipes that are delicious and make you feel good always find their way back into the kitchen, no matter how old they are or the conditions they were developed in, including global conflicts such as World War I," she said. Plus, Vogt explained, "the recipe is easy to modify, easy to adjust to personal taste or preference and easy because most people already have the ingredients on hand."
During WWI, when Americans voluntarily reduced the amount of meat and wheat they consumed, nutritional science began to emerge and found peanuts to be "an excellent alternative for protein and fats needed for a healthy diet."
The wartime recipe originated from a cookbook called "Win the War in the Kitchen" that encouraged the art of swapping out ingredients -- a useful practice for home cooks to this day, especially when supermarkets are low on essential ingredients like bread or all purpose flour.
Vogt said recipe modifications from that era "seem in alignment with the 21st century" adaptations for health or food sensitivities. Many WWI cookbooks in particular emphasized alternative flours such as barley, corn, rice, rye and potato flours, which were "all promoted and encouraged to be used singularly or in conjunction with wheat flour."
Another version of the simple homemade loaf recipe recently reemerged on an "Old Recipes" sub-Reddit and bakers have compared it in flavor to a classic peanut butter cookie.
While the nutty bread only has a few ingredients, bloggers and Reddit users have been quick to add their own adaptations with everything from a Nutella topping to using the bread as the base for French Toast.
One California-based blogger, The Fig Jar, shared her take on the simple six-ingredient recipe that uses two cups flour, four teaspoons baking powder, one teaspoon salt, 1/3 cup sugar, 1 1/3 cups milk and 1/2 cup of creamy peanut butter. Once mixed, Becky wrote "mix and bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes
Check out the full recipe below from "What to Eat and How to Cook It" to give it a try in your own kitchen and share the results with "GMA" on social media!
WWI Peanut Butter Bread Recipe
Ingredients
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup chopped dates
2 cups rye flour
2 cups white flour
1 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups milk
1 egg
Directions
Place dry ingredients in a bowl.
Mix egg with milk and mix thoroughly with the dry ingredients.
Set to rise for 15 minutes in a warm place.
Bake at 395-400 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour and check for doneness. Allow to cool. Slice and serve.
Check out other recipes that only require online a few ingredients here from the online exhibit War Fare: From The Homefront To the Frontlines.
