I'm a newbie baker, I won't deny it. But in my newbie-ness, I think I've stumbled onto something kind of good. Although I also concede that being I am a newbie baker, my hallelujah moment to me just may be a 'um, yeah, we knew that' from a more seasoned baker.
Even so, I just wanted to share my 'hallelujah' Banana Cake moment with you.
Being that I am quite new to baking, I also have the wealth of internet information at my hands to educate myself. In this case, I used: The Kitchn How to Make Banana Bread ....but don't tell my mother-in-law.
Anyway, I thought I had made my banana bread to the very letter of that same recipe and I even creamed the butter by hand like I did as a teen when stand mixer's were still in realm of the professional (yes, I'm kinda old) and the first time I made the banana bread, it was heavenly but not at all like my mother-in-laws, it was more like a cake, lighter and so yummy. But then the next time I made it, I was feeling under the weather (I blame my flu shot) and it didn't rise! It still tasted great but it was so depressingly flat! I was completely perplexed. Sure, I wasn't feeling good but I didn't mix it all that much more than I did the first time. What went wrong? So I did a lot of internet research and thought that maybe I mixed the batter too much, so the next time I mixed the batter by hand...it turned out amazing again! Even though both my mother-in-law and my husband had made banana bread by electric beaters and had no problems with it rising, but I did. I just couldn't understand why it was different for me.
But a couple weeks later, after looking over the recipe again, I realized my reading comprehension was to blame and instead of using baking soda, I used baking powder, which is supposedly four times less potent than baking soda. So after realizing this, I made my next banana batter with soda and it turned out to be the more typically brown loafed bread but I didn't like it as much, at all and my husband and son thought so as well.
So, the moral of this story is, if you want a more banana cake, rather than bread, use the same amount of powder rather than soda but be more careful in how you mix it...by hand is the best because it's the gentlest way of mixing to ensure it's just mixed enough.
Also, if anyone is interested in making their own honey whole wheat bread but haven't tried yet, let me know and I'll happily impart my own very recent journey into making my own homemade bread for my family on a weekly basis because the money you save on making your own is huge and I don't think I've ever felt more proud of myself than when I made my first loaves of bread.
It's the little things in life isn't nyx. Congrats for your accomplishment.
Thanks, Debstoy and very true. I never realized how these kind of little things could be so gratifying until I tried them. Like baking bread! Always got the impression growing up that it was such a long and difficult task to do but after actually trying it myself, I find out it's not so bad after all, and it's so amazingly satisfying to do for my family.
Baking is like experimental chemistry, even the amount of moisture in the air can effect whether a cup of flour is actually a cup of flour. Am so glad to see recipes changing over to weight instead of volume, so much more reliable.
I tend to like the smaller, denser type of banana bread, but can see the value of the cake like texture. Good for you for figuring out what worked for each type!
Bread has always been my nemesis. Am really good at making, hard, dry rocks. Have never done well at the whole yeast and kneading business. Good for you, am a bit envious.
Bread has always been my nemesis. Am really good at making, hard, dry rocks. Have never done well at the whole yeast and kneading business. Good for you, am a bit envious.
It has been my experience that there are two distinctly different types of bakers: the heavy handed and the light. The former are the best bread bakers, and the latter are best for cakes and biscuits(cookies to you)
I am the bread maker in the house and my wife is the biscuit/pastry maker. I even make better bread when we use the fully automatic bread maker. Something I just cannot make sense of as the machine does all the kneading.
I second the use of weights for measures. We even have a set of scales with a precision of 0.01g for measuring yeast. And yes I have checked the accuracy. Not that it really matters as long as it is consistent. I just have to be careful not to breathe on it.
Main GCID: GregDarcy Secondary: GregDarcyToo All gems friends spoken for. Happy to accept friends for party hats. I blame Apple's auto incorrect for all my typos. I actively discourage challenges. All challengers are unfriended.
We have a mixer with a dough hook that have been meaning to try for about a year now, would love to make our own wheat bread, and better yet, sourdough. Nothing like the scent of fresh bread/rolls baking to put an easy 5 lbs on without taking a bite.
A dough hook on a mixer is a good way to take the hard work out of making bread, but I have pretty much given up on it as the bread machine gets to make our daily bread and when I make something special I prefer to knead by hand. It takes longer, but you get a better feel for what's going on and its a great stress reliever.
If you do use the dough hook, you need to babysit the mixer as it has a tendency to walk around because of the uneven load. I once had mine walk off the bench. I don't understand why the breadmaker doesn't do the same, but it doesn't.
Sourdough is both easier and harder than the mythology would have it. Easier because kneading is not such an issue, and it is easier than you would believe to get the starter going. I used a fairly sloppy wholemeal and water mixture with a little piece of rhubarb added - I came across that tip in an English cookbook & it seemed to work. Harder because it takes about two weeks before the starter is in a fit state to make a loaf, though once it is there, you can make a loaf every day. In fact you need to, else you will be wasting a lot of flour as you halve the starter each day and refeed it. I did discover that the discard makes quite reasonable crepes despite the lack of egg. It also makes quite respectable (English) crumpets. In fact I suspect the need to use the sourdough discard was the inspiration behind a lot of those fried dough/batter recipes. Sourdough is also a lot more laid back as the proofing is MUCH slower. I start a normal loaf in the morning and it's ready for lunch. I start a sourdough the night before and its ready for supper.
Main GCID: GregDarcy Secondary: GregDarcyToo All gems friends spoken for. Happy to accept friends for party hats. I blame Apple's auto incorrect for all my typos. I actively discourage challenges. All challengers are unfriended.
I had a friend give me a starter for friendship bread. I fed it a halved it and cooked it. I got to where I was baking 2 loaves every day and ran out f friends to give the other starters to. Needless to say I got buried in starters and bread I finally had to quit. Lol. But it was great tasting. Wish I could do something like that just once in a while instead of it getting bigger than life.
Went through the same process with the same result. It was really good, but daily life got in the way of continuing.
Have had 2 sourdough starters and just couldn't get into the habits needed to keep it going. Felt like such a waste to through half of it away every day.
I"m one of the light-handed bakers that Greg is speaking of. It's all about the cookies for me! Right now I'm on the lookout for some good Christmas cookies. I'll post some recipes when I get the chance, but if y'all have any good Christmas cookie recipes I'd be interested! I've yet to find a sugar cookie recipe that I like. They never turn out as soft as I'd like.
As for bread... I. I can make pizza dough, which is not quite bread. I've never tried making bread myself, though I had a roommate who did it all the time. Made the house smell lovely.
The origins of pizza lie in the practice of breaking off a piece of bread dough and using it to test the temperature of the oven, so I reckon it IS bread. Specifically a leavened flat bread. You do use yeast, flour, water and salt right?
Main GCID: GregDarcy Secondary: GregDarcyToo All gems friends spoken for. Happy to accept friends for party hats. I blame Apple's auto incorrect for all my typos. I actively discourage challenges. All challengers are unfriended.
The origins of pizza lie in the practice of breaking off a piece of bread dough and using it to test the temperature of the oven, so I reckon it IS bread. Specifically a leavened flat bread. You do use yeast, flour, water and salt right?
Yep! And a little bit of olive oil.
I didn't know that about pizza, that's interesting! I guess that's what had to be done before your oven told you how hot it was...
Now that you remind me, I use a little oil too. Though I tend to use the flavoured oil from my favourite persian fetta
Main GCID: GregDarcy Secondary: GregDarcyToo All gems friends spoken for. Happy to accept friends for party hats. I blame Apple's auto incorrect for all my typos. I actively discourage challenges. All challengers are unfriended.
I"m one of the light-handed bakers that Greg is speaking of. It's all about the cookies for me! Right now I'm on the lookout for some good Christmas cookies. I'll post some recipes when I get the chance, but if y'all have any good Christmas cookie recipes I'd be interested! I've yet to find a sugar cookie recipe that I like. They never turn out as soft as I'd like.
As for bread... I. I can make pizza dough, which is not quite bread. I've never tried making bread myself, though I had a roommate who did it all the time. Made the house smell lovely.
Do you put icing on your Christmas cookies?
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Baking is like experimental chemistry, even the amount of moisture in the air can effect whether a cup of flour is actually a cup of flour. Am so glad to see recipes changing over to weight instead of volume, so much more reliable.
I tend to like the smaller, denser type of banana bread, but can see the value of the cake like texture. Good for you for figuring out what worked for each type!
Bread has always been my nemesis. Am really good at making, hard, dry rocks. Have never done well at the whole yeast and kneading business. Good for you, am a bit envious.
I never thought about it like that but I can totally see how such things could affect baking. I've been meaning to buy a scale for the kitchen, now I have even more of a reason to.
And just in case you might want to try it again, here is the bread recipe I used and it's just fabulous.
Reading over the reviews of the recipe is what really encouraged me to try it because there were quite a few novice bakers who tried it and met with gleeful success. It's very forgiving and so tasty and versatile! My first two loaves were perfect save for the nice big air bubble in the middle of them because I had absolutely no idea how to fold them but there's a lovely instructional video for that on TheKitcn website that helped me with that shortcoming. I was so darn proud of myself, air bubble and all, I can't tell you. ;D
GregDarcy - That's a really interesting theory and now that I think of it, my grandmother and great aunt both baked (they lived together) but I'm pretty sure that my grandmother focused on the cookies and cakes while my great aunt did everything else.
lemmyloop - Speaking of my grandmother brings back memories of all the christmas cookies she used to make every year. I'll ask my folks and see if they still have the recipes.
OOoh, fun! Whole wheat is what I'd like to try. Thanks, will look into it.
Let me know how it goes! The dough is really tacky at first and I was a bit alarmed by that but for some reason a reviewer's comment about kneading until it was 'as soft as a baby's bum', still slightly sticky but pulls away from the counter gave me a good idea of when it was time to stop, and it didn't seem to take that long either.
I really enjoy kneading but after reading up a bit on bread making, and getting the impression of how arduous it can be, it might just be that this recipe is more forgiving than others in that sense because I want to keep kneading when I realize it's time to stop. At any rate, I think I'll stick to this recipe for a good while until I feel a bit seasoned and then I'll try a different bread recipe.
GregDarcy - That's a really interesting theory and now that I think of it, my grandmother and great aunt both baked (they lived together) but I'm pretty sure that my grandmother focused on the cookies and cakes while my great aunt did everything else.
Oddly enough I first ran into it in a science fiction story. It was a long time ago, but I have a vague recollection that it was one Ursula k Le Guin's. Possibly rocannons world. It stuck with me, and I have seen it confirmed time and time again.
Main GCID: GregDarcy Secondary: GregDarcyToo All gems friends spoken for. Happy to accept friends for party hats. I blame Apple's auto incorrect for all my typos. I actively discourage challenges. All challengers are unfriended.
I had a friend give me a starter for friendship bread. I fed it a halved it and cooked it. I got to where I was baking 2 loaves every day and ran out f friends to give the other starters to. Needless to say I got buried in starters and bread I finally had to quit. Lol. But it was great tasting. Wish I could do something like that just once in a while instead of it getting bigger than life.
Went through the same process with the same result. It was really good, but daily life got in the way of continuing.
Have had 2 sourdough starters and just couldn't get into the habits needed to keep it going. Felt like such a waste to through half of it away every day.
You actually don't have to feed sourdough starter every day. My mom would feed it every week and the again the night before using it. She made the most amazing eggless sourdough pancakes with what would normally get thrown away.
I've yet to find a sugar cookie recipe that I like. They never turn out as soft as I'd like.
Here is sugar cookie recipe that a friend of mine shared with me. They are the best tasting sugar cookies I had ever eaten. It is measurements not weights, sorry. Please bear with me as I am typing all of this on my iphone. We have been having technology issues at our house lately.
Sugar cookies 1 1/2 C butter 1 1/2 C sugar 2 eggs 1Tbs vanilla extract 2Tbs milk 4 C flour 1 Tbs baking powder 1/2 tsp salt
Preheat oven to 375* F (350 for convection) Cream together the butter, sugar, eggs, & vanilla extract. Stir in milk. Add dry ingredients & mix well. Chill dough for 1 hour. On a floured and sugared surface, roll out to 1/4 inch thick. Cut out cookies & place on an un-greased cookie sheet (I still use parchment paper). Bake for 8 minutes (6 for convection), look for very slight browning.
Frosting (A simple lemon icing is delicious on these; 2C powdered sugar mixed with the zest and juice of two lemons. Actually, just add juice till thin yet spreadable consistency) 2# powdered sugar 1C butter 1 small can evaporated milk 1/2 pinch of salt (Honest! That's what the recipe says!) 1 tsp vanilla extract
Beat all of the above together. If adding color be sure to use gel colorant to maintain consistency.
Homemade peanut clusters are what's cooking' at the moment. Actually they are all done except for the cooling off/setting up stage.
I am so far behind this year! I haven't made one gingerbread house yet and usually by this time I have made at least 4.
Got my daughter and her friend to make the fudge the other day. Fudge, peanut clusters and gingerbread houses are our traditional holiday make and share items.
I have been down for the count with some nasty bug that has been going around. I am very grateful that it has left my 90 year old father alone! He came to live with us this year. I feel bad that he isn't getting our usual festive vibe. We finally got the tree and it is still undecorated !
Anywho, let me know if you want the peanut cluster recipe. Super easy, super tasty.
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I don't understand why the breadmaker doesn't do the same, but it doesn't.
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