culinary near-miss

[cellio]

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.

Comments

[cellio]

Ok, so the "batter" state is normal for quick breads, and conventionally you just pour them into a loaf pan and stick them into the oven? That doesn't sound any harder than cake; I can do that. :-)

I've probably got non-bread-machine recipes in some of my conventional cookbooks. (Or, for that matter, the bread-machine recipe probably works fine, leaving only temperature and cooking time unspecified.) I just never thought to look.

(You see, I had these very-ripe bananas, and I didn't want to waste them...)

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

yes, the batter state is completely normal. And yes, you just pour them into a pan and stick them in the oven. It's actually simpler than a cake. The batter is far less finicky than cake batter is. Cake batter is much more sensitive to overbeating, and must have precise measurements usually (depending on the type of cake). Plus, you don't have to put icing on banana bread (not that it's NECESSARY for cake, but it is a typical extra step).

If you find yourself with overripe bananas again and you don't have time to make banana bread with them right then and there, put them in the freezer. The skins will turn completely black, but the bananas will still be find for banana bread when you take them out. Set them on the counter until they're defrosted enough that you can peel them, and mash them up with a fork, a whisk, or a potato masher. Voila!

[cellio]

Thanks! I hadn't thought to freeze them; it's handy to know that that works.

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

You can mash them first and freeze them in Gladware; that's what my mom always did.

Also, you might find this useful: http://bread.allrecipes.com/default.asp?lnkid=48 -- there are all sorts of excellent recipes there for DIY bread and bread machines. Allrecipes.com is a real treasure trove.

[cellio]

Ooh, handy site -- thanks!

Thanks also for the mashing tip. It's more compact and less weird that way; I'm not sure what would happen the first time someone other than me discovered the black bananas. :-)

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

I got very annoyed once when someone I was living with threw out the over-ripe bananas I was getting ready to mash and freeze for banana bread. "But they were all black!" "I know; they were perfect!"

This from someone who won't eat a banana with a bruise...