Loaves a' Plenty
Warning, Gentle Reader: Do not buy a bread machine. The devices are highly addictive.
I'm not much of a bread person, as I believe I've said before, and for good reason: I know little restraint if I find a bread I really enjoy. I'll eat the whole damn loaf in one sitting if it tickles my fancy. I don't need that kind of temptation--or the ensuing pounds and guilt--so I try to keep my distance. However, my resolve to stay the hell away from bread has been put to the test since acquiring the three bread machines and stumbling upon the joys and frustrations of baking bread.
This Shit Is Bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S.
After our success with the honey whole wheat loaf, I was anxious to continue my work eliminating the possible causes of previous failures. After the experiment of reducing the initial water content with the whole wheat loaf, I wanted to try the old yeast one more time to determine if my suspicions were correct and that it was past its prime. Yeah, sure, I could just test the stuff, but where was the fun in that when I could try it in another recipe and perhaps wind up with another loaf?
Plus I'd bought a pair of "loose" bananas--ones other shoppers had ripped off a bunch because they didn't want to buy them--that were starting to age during my weekly grocery run. The husband and I had already targeted the banana bread recipe printed in our Welbilt ABM-3600 manual, hence my purchase (because I'm not a banana-eater, nor is the husband). Those 'naners were starting to get a wee bit brown, a sign of good mushiness for the explicit purpose of making banana bread.
1/2 t vanilla
1/2 C mashed banana
1 1/2 C white flour
1/2 C whole wheat flour
1 T gluten
1 1/2 T butter
1 1/2 T dry milk
2 T honey
1 t salt
2 1/4 t active dry yeast
Chopped walnuts (optional)
- Add ingredients in order listed or per bread machine's instructions.
- Use the Normal or White bread option.
- Add chopped walnuts, if desired, at the fruit indicator beep or 5 minutes before the end of the kneading cycle.
The Faudie's Futzings
As we had with the whole wheat loaf, I reduced the amount of water from 7 ounces to just over 6 to compensate for the day's heat and humidity. I did add back some--one or two tablespoons, I think--when I heard the kneading blade/paddle/whatever starting to struggle.
Otherwise, I didn't futz with the recipe because I don't yet feel confident in my bread-baking skills and knowledge of bread-baking to substitute ingredients. I'm sure the day will come...but that time is not here.
As I mentioned a few paragraphs back, I used the old yeast--with predictable results. During the third rising, I checked on the dough and my heart sank, just as the bread had right in the center.
Yep, that's right: I had a major case of consurgo interruptus.But the crater's location didn't necessarily answer a question entirely. Instead, it raised others: Had my half-cup of mashed bananas been too much, causing the bread to collapse? Had I withheld too much water, causing the banana mush to coagulate in the center, which created a dead weight that pulled down the loaf?
After I gave it some time to cool, I sliced into the loaf to check out its innards. Sure enough, the texture was very holey--almost like muffins--and
gummy in some areas. If the tips at BreadMachineDigest.com are right, then the yeast is not to blame. The dough had too much moisture, either from adding too much water during kneading or from the mushed 'naners, given the heat and humidity in the kitchen. Le sigh....I have to say, though, that at this point I'm ready to chuck (well, compost) the old yeast. I'm just not willing to try it again. Okay, maybe the thought of all that yeast going to waste will spur me to getting my arse in gear and test it, but we'll have to see.
As for the taste of the loaf, it was also a heart-sinker. It had no discernible banana flavor whatsoever. I couldn't even detect the vanilla.
Now here's the stupid thing, Gentle Reader: Despite the literal flop I had on my hands, I wound up practically eating the whole damn misshapen loaf that evening. The husband and I discovered that putting some vanilla-flavored agave nectar on the bread was pretty tasty--and that tastiness turned on my carb-loving switch, and I just couldn't frickin' stop myself. That voice in my head kept yelling at me to stop eating, and it's that same voice that I so often and compulsively ignore (and the one that leads to so many long hours in the gym).
Yes, Gentle Reader, I have issues. Rather than dealing with the issues, I avoid food that trigger those insatiable responses. Or at least I try to. And fail often.
Don't Call It Seed-uction 'cuz Whole Paycheck's Probably Trademarked That Name
Plowing ahead, the husband and I determined that on our last Friday of boy-less freedom, we'd make that six-seed bread recipe from Anne Sheasby's The Bread Machine Bible the husband so longed to make.
2 T sunflower oil
1 2/3 C white bread flour
1 T skim milk powder
1 1/2 t salt
2 t sugar
1 t instant dry yeast
2 T sunflower seeds
1 T pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
2 t sesame seeds
2 t poppy seeds
1 t caraway seeds
1 t cumin or fennel seeds
- Pour the water into the bread pan, then add the oil.
- Sprinkle each type of flour over the liquid in turn, covering it completely.
- Sprinkle the milk powder over the flour.
- Place the salt and sugar in separate corners of the pan.
- Make a small indent in the middle of the flour, and place the yeast in it.
- Close the lid of the machine and set it to Basic White/Normal with Raisin, if available (or equivalent), select the loaf size and crust type then press Start.
- Combine the seeds in a small bowl.
- Add the mixed seeds when the machine makes a sound (beep) to add extra ingredients during the kneading cycle. (Or add the seeds 5 min. before the end of the kneading cycle.)
- After baking, remove the bread pan from the machine.
- Turn the loaf out onto a wire rack to cool.
The Faudie's Futzings
The husband opted to use cumin seeds instead of fennel ones. Another note about the seeds: I assumed the call for pumpkin seeds referred to pepitas, not the big-ass seeds you scoop out of your pumpkin and roast after you're finished carving your Jack-'o-lantern.
This time around, we did not reduce the amount of water initially put into the loaf. I figured since we were using dense whole wheat flour, we'd need all the water we could get. We also used the new SAF yeast we'd bought, just to spare us any heartache. Plus I'd told the husband that I wasn't going to waste all those seeds on a loaf that didn't rise because of bum yeast.
Speaking of that whole wheat flour, did you notice, Gentle Reader, that the recipe calls for whole wheat bread flour? You might recall from an earlier post how I recounted our fruitless search for such a product. So what did we do? We followed a tip I'd read in several places that a person can make whole wheat bread flour simply by adding a tablespoon of gluten for every cup of flour. Voila!
So how did it turn out? Well, just look at this happy man:
That's a happy bread man!You might be wondering, Gentle Reader, how the seeding of the bread turned out. After all, the seeds get poured in after the ingredients have been mixed, so do they get into the bread, or do some of them stick to the exterior and some of them wind up in the bottom of the pan, burnt, after baking? If you've had a slice or a roll or a loaf of seeded bread, you might be familiar with the experience: The seeds are on the crust as tempting
decoration, and a good deal of them wind up lost in the bag or on your plate or napkin and not in your mouth.Well, I'm happy to report that no seeds were left behind in the baking of this bread. Sure, some of them were dislodged as we removed the loaf from the pan and, later, when I cut into it. By and large, though, most of the seeds are still either firmly embedded in the crust or in the bread itself.
The husband reports that this bread is fabulous with tuna. I myself did not enjoy it that much. Don't get me wrong, Gentle Reader: There was nothing wrong with the flavor of the finished product. It just didn't trip my trigger. Additionally, the cumin seeds confused my taste buds. Whenever I hit one as I chewed the portion of our test slice, my taste buds started expected Indian or Mexican food, not...well, bread. But be assured that we'll be making this loaf again--and soon.
Just Add Jelly
We'd like bread-making to be a family activity here at Chez Boeckman-Walker. Now that the boy's home from his summer gallivanting, what better way to indoctrinate him than to make a loaf he might really dig: peanut butter snack bread.
1/4 C peanut butter
1 egg
2 C bread flour
4 t sugar
1/2 t salt
1 t active dry yeast or bread machine yeast
1/2 C chopped peanuts
- Add ingredients to the machine according to its manufacturer's directions.
Nutritional Info
The kind folks at Better Homes and Gardens, which put out Bread Machine Bounty waaaay back in 1992 and is the source of this recipe, kindly included per-serving nutritional info for all the recipes. Hooray!
However, they failed to include the amount of fiber in each slice. C'mon folks! Fiber! It's...it's flour-based food. Fiber should be an obvious nutritional component to include. Oy!
Calories: 126
Fat: 5 g
Sat fat: 1 g
Protein: 5 g
Carbs: 16 g
Cholesterol: 14 mg
Na: 96 mg
The Faudie's Futzings
I used reduced-fat peanut butter from Wally World. I had stowed half a jar in the freezer after the boy went off on vacation, and now that he's returned, I yanked it back out. Its use might lower the total fat count some, but it's probably negligible.
The egg was a lovely brown one from a local farm. The boy picked it out himself, and I let it have time to come to room temperature. Aren't you proud of me, Gentle Reader?
As for those chopped peanuts, I wasn't sure if the recipe needed a half-cup of chopped peanuts or a half-cup of peanuts, chopped. There is a difference--and it could make a huge impact on the bread. To be safe, I measure out half a cup of peanuts, chopped them with my handy chef's knife and added them when the machine beeped for the additional ingredients. I just didn't feel safe putting them in with the rest of the ingredients before the start of the cycle.
Speaking of the cycle, I used the Normal option. In the machine's manual, the egg loaf recipe is included in the set of recipes for the Normal setting, so I just figured that's the one to use.
Unfortunately, I failed to preserve the boy's first attempt at bread-making with the kitchen camera. He was very good when leveling the various ingredients, and he also made short work of the peanut butter that stuck to the quarter-cup measuring cup and spatula. The boy also thought the way yeast works to help the bread rise--which I explained as a simple biological process of millions of yeast cells eating sugar and farting, causing the bread to rise--was absolutely hilarious. And he woke from his post-lunch nap to the wonderful aroma of baking peanut butter bread.
Just add jelly!Of course, luck would have it that Chez Boeckman-Walker is kind of bereft of jelly or jam to put atop this wonderful loaf. While the bread cooled, we ran out to take care of some errands, including a stop at HEB to pick up, among other things, a jar of red plum preserves that taste just like my Mum's sand plum jelly. Put dollop of that red, yummy stuff atop a slice of peanut butter snack bread, and you can forget about making run of the mill PB&J sandwiches. Count on it, Gentle Reader!
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