Fennel, Carrot, Rhubarb, Almond Amish Friendship Bread

Dressed up Basic Amish Friendship Bread
What I love about Amish Friendship Bread is that it's so versatile that you're not always making the same sweet bread. And, it's friendly. My variation is less sweet but still tasty. Keeping in mind that you are adding only 1 cup of either nuts or fruit or a combination of both, this is what I did. 1/4 cup each of finely chopped Fennel, 1/4 cup finely chopped carrot, 1/4 cup chopped rhubarb, and 1/4 cup chopped almonds. I dry-roasted the almonds with 1/2 teaspoon Fennel seeds and 1/2/ teaspoon Anise seeds until the almonds just started to brown at the edges. Remove from heat to cool.

In a large mixing bowl with balance of Amish Friendship Bread starter, I added the following: 2/3 cup oil, 3 eggs, 1/2 tsp. salt (optional), 1 tsp. vanilla, 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon mint leaves, 1 cup sugar, 2 cups plain flour, 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder, 1/2 tsp. baking soda. Blended, then beat, the mixture by hand; added the chopped fennel, carrots, rhubarb, and toasted almond mixture. Decided to try out my new non-stick Bundt pan and did not grease it. Did grease one loaf pan with butter and sprinkled it with sugar instead of flour.

Solar oven had reached 325F and I decided to try and piggy-back the pans. At 12:07pm, I placed the loaf pan on one of the disposable trays, tightened the corners, placed it over the center of the Bundt pan. This helped it balance better over the middle post. Because it was double-stacked and the top loaf pan had much less in it, I was able to remove the loaf within 35 minutes. 

I then rotated the Bundt pan (it had not gotten quite as done on the far shady side), and left it in for another 30 minutes. Conventional oven - 5,000BTUs; solar oven - FREE! Removed the bread from the solar oven and placed it on a rack to cool for about ten minutes. The loaf came out fine; the Bundt pan didn't want to relinquish its prize quite so easily, since I chose not to oil and sugar it. So there's a little less cake on one bump, as you can see. It sure was good and moist, but I've decided to leave out the rhubarb, next time. It wasn't not sweet; it just didn't have that "I want more, now!" feeling to it.