cellio | culinary near-miss

I wanted to make banana bread last night using the bread machine. I've never made banana bread before (with or without a machine). I got out the book of recipes only to find that the only banana-bread recipe is for a "quick bread". I've never made quick breads, because the manual contains warnings about them being fragile, about needing to tweak cooking time on the fly, and so forth. That's too much work; I want to dump stuff in the machine and ignore it until it brings forth bread three or four hours later.

So I started comparing quick-bread recipes to regular-bread recipes to figure out the mapping. The big difference, of course, is that quick-breads don't use yeast; they use baking soda instead. There was nothing that existed in both quick and regular forms, but after looking at several recipes I concluded that this was the only major difference. I was concerned that the quick-bread recipe might have too much liquid, but I decided to forge ahead anyway. (I did make one other substitution, water for milk, because I keep my bread machine parve.)

So I used the quick-bread ingredients, without changing quantities, but then instead of the baking soda I used the canonical 2 teaspoons of yeast from the regular recipes. During the first mixing the "dough" looked positively soupy, so I added one more cup of flour and helped the machine stir it in. It still looked soupy, but I decided to leave it alone.

Three hours later the bread looked like bread rather than soggy glop. However, it had overflowed the pan rather thoroughly, creating a mess that I will deal with more thoroughly tonight. Because of this, there was no chance of removing the loaf cleanly from the pan. I ended up using a spatula to carve out the main part. I still didn't know what I would find inside at this point, but I had just given up on presentation.

The interior is bread-like and tastes fine. There was some caked flour in the corners, but otherwise the mix of ingredients seemed to be right. Next time I'll just scale it all down to 75% or so.

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magid.livejournal.com

Interesting; I've never thought to map a quick bread to a yeast bread (or vice versa). I've made sweet yeasted breads (cinnamon, chai, raisin, etc), but varied a yeast dough to do that, rather than starting with quick breads (which I think of as sweet and with a sort of denser-than-cake sort of crumb).

Oh, and the other difference for me (being non-bread-machine-endowed) is that a quick bread is a batter that I bake right then, while a yeast bread is a process that takes more time before I put it in the oven, but I can control the duration of the process by varying the amount of yeast and the temperature.

If it's useful, I know the bread porn book I have (the Dorling Kindersley bread book, with lots of photos) has a squash or carrot bread recipe; I'd think replacing banana mush for squash mush would work fine.

cellio

I forgot one important detail in my report: I used the "sweet bread" cycle on the machine. I don't know how the cooking differs, but with all the banana and sugar in the pan, it seemed the right thing to do.

I don't really know how to make conventional bread. I mean, I know the theory, but I lack confidence. Gee, has that doubled in size? I didn't measure it. How hard and frequently should I "punch down" the dough? How should I adjust yeast to compensate for temperature variation in the kitchen? It's all so complicated, and the bread machine would be happy to help... (I made my own challah once; then I decided that $1 per week was a perfectly fair price to pay the bakery.)

If it's useful, I know the bread porn book I have (the Dorling Kindersley bread book, with lots of photos) has a squash or carrot bread recipe; I'd think replacing banana mush for squash mush would work fine.

Ooh, that sounds interesting! (For the carrot or squash bread directly, too.)

Ah, my ignorance of bread machines is showing: I didn't know there was a sweet bread setting.

I find yeasted bread incredibly forgiving, actually. It doesn't have to precisely doubled (Does it look larger and poofier than the dough you set aside? Then it'll likely be just fine.). Punching down is anything that will get the gas pockets deflated; I usually give it one punch in the middle, then as I form the dough try to get any other pockets deflated. Yeast adjusting can be pretty crude, frankly; I don't use measuring spoons, just the well of my hand, and add 'less' if I want a long rise or it's warm out, 'more' if it's a short rise or cold out (or there are lots of add-ins that make the dough denser).

Challah around here is much pricier, apparently. One of the premium local brands (too sweet to be anything but a dessert challah to me, but everyone else loves it) is $6/loaf, which adds up pretty quickly.

I'll try to get you the recipe tonight. It's well worth finding a copy to browse, if you can; the recipes are good, but the photography is outstanding (like most DK books).

Thanks for the bread-making advice! (Also for the book tip; I'll look for it.)

The normal-sized challah loaves here are around $3. One of the bakeries also sells mini-loaves for $1, which are just fine for the two of us. Even that was sometimes producing leftovers, though (Dani's not big on bread), and I only need so many parve bread crumbs at any given time, so lately I've been buying challah rolls by the dozen, bagging them pairwise, and freezing them. This, too, amounts to under $1 per Shabbat.

I have three major strategies for leftover bread:

Foist it on friends and orkers (easier if they're not on Atkins :-)(works best with homemade bread).
Make breadcrumbs for stuffing.
Make bread pudding (also prime for foistage), especially bread pudding.

I started making challah because there wasn't anywhere close that carried it (then), and the time investment (not to mention dollar investment; it's about $11 for 50 lb of flour.) was so much lower, and I continue because I'm lazy, and it's easier not to have to go out for bread close to Shabbat. I'm not sure why I don't do well with frozen whole loaves/rolls, but I don't. Bread crumbs eventually get used, though. Hm. Maybe it's because there's a premium on space in my freezer, and it's more important to me to have other things in the freezer than bulky bread, when I can make it fresh pretty quickly.

Periodically I think of making a huge bread-making post, about the things I do automatically now, after 10 years of making my own. I never seem to have time while I have the inspiration, though.

*laugh* So you make challah because you're lazy, and I buy it because I'm lazy. :-)

Periodically I think of making a huge bread-making post, about the things I do automatically now, after 10 years of making my own. I never seem to have time while I have the inspiration, though.

I would like to encourage you in this. I enjoy reading your food posts anyway and have gotten a bunch of ideas from you (can you believe I had never thought to roast veggies for Shabbat before you mentioned it?), and I think a bread post would be wonderful.

The book is actually called Ultimate Bread, by Eric Treuille and Ursula Ferrigno, published by Dorling Kindersley. It's a pretentious title, and there are definitely a couple of holes here and there, but it's a beautiful book. (There's a section on quick breads, too.)

So, it turns out that there are two recipes that might be of interest. Carrot bread uses freshly grated carrot (or a variant with beets), while pumpkin bread uses (cooked) pureed pumpkin. (Extremely abbreviated directions, btw.)

Carrot Bread
has 2 tsp yeast
1.25 c water
3.5 c flour
2 tsp salt
0.5 lb grated carrot
1 tbsp melted unsalted butter

If your yeast needs proofing, add it to 0.5 c water, then 5 min later add that to the flour and salt. Add carrots and butter and remaining water. Form dough. Knead until smooth but still sticky. Put in bowl, cover, let double (1-1.5 hours). Punch down. Rest 10 minutes. Shape into a round loaf. Put on floured baking sheet and let rise, covered, until double, about 45 minutes. Bake in preheated 400 F oven for 45 minutes, until golden. Cool.

Pumpkin Bread
has 15 oz pumpkin puree
2 tsp yeast
2 tsp honey
4 c flour
2 tsp salt
egg glaze (1 egg yolk and 1 tbsp milk)
2 tbsp pumpkin seeds, for topping

Proof yeast in 0.25 c water, if needed. Add honey after 5 minutes; stir to dissolve. Add to flour and salt, then add pumpkin puree. Mix to form sticky dough. Knead until very smooth, silky, elastic. Put in bowl, cover, let rise until double, about 1.5 hours. Punch down, let rest 10 minutes. Shape into round loaf. Put on oiled baking sheed, let rise (covered) until doubled, about an hour. Brush with egg glaze and sprinkle pumpkin seeds on top. Bake in preheated 425 F oven for 40 min, until golden. Cool.

(Note: I use a kind of yeast that doesn't need proofing in water first, which is why I changed the directions to say to proof the yeast if needed.)

Thank you! And thanks especially for the name and author info for the book; now I know why "Dorling Kindersley" wasn't making for happy searches. :-)

kayre

The 'dough' cycle can be a nice compromise-- let the bread machine do the kneading, first rising and punching down; then you shape as you wish, wait for second rising and bake. If you use the recommended size pan, it'll be ready to bake when it's just up to the top of the pan. If you're doing something freestyle like challah, it won't matter much if you bake a bit too soon; it'll just be a touch more dense.

Good point! Let the bread machine do most of the work. :-)

Monica

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