Decadent Banana Bread

Right after the disaster with the whole grain brownies, something good DID happen. The very next day, I tried the banana bread recipe again, with a few adjustments based on my parents' suggestions. My dad thought the banana bread before didn't taste much like banana and told me to add more banana next time. My Mom wanted it less sweet. She also gave me a pack of honeyed walnuts from HK, which was great so I didn't have to buy any walnuts. There was still some more of the leftover cheap chocolate from the WW brownies, so I tossed those in as well.


Tita Kulet helped me with the preparations. I used a bunch of overripe bananas (conveniently and cheaply obtained from Marquee Metro supermarket, my favorite supermarket recently. I'll explain why in a future post). I wanted her to mash only 6, but she ended up mashing the whole bunch (about 7, I think), and that frazzled me up a bit 'cause it wasn't part of the plan, but she convinced me to go ahead and use up all of it anyway. What a great suggestion, because I came up with a very moist and banana-ey bread that stayed moist for a whole week!

I was still using the Pillsbury Healthy Baking recipe, except I substituted half AP, half WW flour. Actually, I think 100% WW flour would do nicely since the bananas keep everything very moist.

Here are the tweaks I made:

Used 7 medium bananas instead of 3
Used only 1/2 cup sugar (still sweet due to moist bananas. I may actually get away with less!)
1 tsp of vanilla
almost 1/2 cup of butter (could probably use less - about 1/3 cup next time due to moist and very ripe bananas)
chocolate chips
walnuts
1 tsp vanilla flavor
added cinnamon streusel on top

Baked for 23 mins at 325F (due to using nonstick pans).

Yield: 3 mini loaf pans (5 3/4" x 3" x 2") or (15 x 7.6 x 5.4 cm)\\

Cinnamon streusel recipe from About.com:

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

half of 1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 stick unsalted butter

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

I won't be using this recipe next time. Probably due to the tropical temperature,the butter became too soft and became more like a paste. I also found it too sweet,despite halving the brown sugar. I'm planning to use a more interesting and less sugar-laden oatmeal streusel topping next time.

All in all, Tita Kulet and I declared it the "best Banana Bread Ever!" My Mom even took hers (sans the streusel topping) to the office and her coworkers said it was 'not too sweet.' And, I gave Nyan a piece and she liked it so much I gave my loaf to her. Ahhh, sweet success :)

P.S. I like eating fresh banana bread, but I realized quickly that I can never fall in love with the taste of banana bread! There's just...something...about it that doesn't give me the smiles and fuzzies :( What a pity...

YE OLDE APPLE PIE for the 1st time

Today (Mar 28), I made pie for the first time in my life. I was hesitant about pies at first because of all the apprehensive pie bakers I've read about online that talk as if pie crust is the Holy Grail of baking. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I LOVE PIE MORE THAN CAKE, so I ABSOLUTELY HAD TO MAKE PIE (it was an intense itch), so I kept on reading a lot and absorbing information, took a deep breath, bought myself a baking mat and a rolling pin, and WENT OFF TO MAKE SOME PIES!!! :D

adorable mini apple pies

Originally I wanted to make Pumpkin Pie, which I believed to be the Best Pie Ever the first and last time I had a taste of it at the International Students' Pot Luck Christmas Party. But due to wanting to make my own pumpkin puree and not the canned kind and thus needing more time and effort for it, I decided to try instead another American favorite, Apple Pie.

The base pie crust I used is the All Butter, Real Flaky Pie Dough from SmittenKitchen. I wanted an all-butter crust and didn't want to mess around with shortening. Assembling the pie dough itself was easier than I expected (but this was probably also due to my extensive reading on the subject, I was prepared for everything). The real challenge, however, was in the ROLLING part, and then the actual BAKING part. Here are my notes:

A definite flake on the top crust - even though I was almost sure it was overworked!

PUTTING THE PIE DOUGH TOGETHER
1. I used 1 cup whole wheat flour plus 1 1/2 cup all-purpose. Taste was excellent. It was also easy to work with.
2. All utensils should be placed in the freezer/fridge beforehand. Premeasure the flour and chill in the freezer. Butter MUST be be frozen. The baking mat (which I use for rolling) should also be chilled.
3. I used the more expensive President brand of French butter and I believe it made a difference. The butter was a dream to work with, and had a pleasant buttery smell and pale butter color unlike local brands.
4. I was planning on grating the butter, but the grater I had was useless so at the last minute I cubed the butter. I had no pastry blender so I tried the fork method but found using my fingers the most efficient. It was pleasant doing this, actually. Only the fingers/tips should be used. The palms are warm enough to melt the butter. Again, COLD is the key.
5. I had slight troubles in putting together little mounds of dough for my mini pies, but that was because I wasn't sure how much dough I needed to fill each muffin pan.

ROLLING OUT THE PIE DOUGH
1. Pie dough straight from the freezer is too hard. From the fridge is best.
2. Again, chill the baking mat.
3. Our kitchen is too hot. The pie dough becomes warm in about 2 minutes. It really is best to work in an AC room.
4. It's better to place plastic wrap sheets between the dough - makes the dough MUCH easier to move and roll. It also saves the rolling pin from getting gunky and dirty.
5. Roll pie dough by turning the dough clockwise with each roll.
6. Don't roll out the dough too thin, as the filling may leak.
7. Do not overwork the pie dough. Handle it as little as possible.

ASSEMBLING THE PIE
1. Poke holes with a fork at the bottom of the crust to prevent it from bubbling up.
2. Apply a layer of egg white wash to prevent sogginess.
3. Hot temperatures make a lattice top virtually impossible. If I want a lattice top, I think I may have to freeze strips in the freezer beforehand.
4. Always make sure to chill the assembled pie beforehand, top crust and all. This prevents shrinking.
5. Make the top crust bigger than called for to make room for folding in the sides. Alternatively, I'm thinking of making a decorative braided edge.
6. Paint with egg wash (+ milk next time) for a shiny top.
7. Make sure there are no cracks at the sides.

fruit juices bubbling on top

BAKING THE PIE
1. Fruit pie filling bubbles up and releases juices, so it's best to bake with another pan underneath.
2. The top crust really does bake much faster than the undersides. I have to tent the pie with aluminum foil about 10 or 15 minutes into baking, (as soon as I see the top browning),
3. then I have to increase baking time to probably about 40 to 45 minutes. I used the #7 setting in the oven.

Shrunken top crust, because I didn't chill the top enough.

Underbaked crust, but I think this is deliciously tender!

CONCLUSION:

For my first pie, I must say...the taste is superb!!! I am crust-lover (as long as the crust is worth it), and the crust was very flavorful indeed. It was sweet, but just the right sweetness. Even though the bottoms were undercooked and such weren't as flaky, the tops did show signs of flakiness. I'm expecting to get better and get good flakiness next time (though I think most people here, including myself, actually like the tenderness of underbaked crusts much better). But I want to try the 'classic' flaky way first.

For the filling, I used the recipe Apple Pie by Grandma Ople from Allrecipes since it has such rave reviews. I added a teaspoon of cinnamon, but McCormick cinnamon is so weak I couldn't even detect it! I'm thinking of investing in the more expensive organic cinnamon next time. Since I used muscovado sugar instead of brown (no decent brown sugar here), the filling was an intense dark brown and had a strong brown sugar taste. But still good, though my mom wanted it less sweet (I simply had too much syrup). Personally, I was surprised that the sugar mixture was not as sweet as I expected. I didn't think it was tooo sweet at all. But next time I'm definitely going to use a lesser ratio of syrup to filling! The filling wasn't liquidy (maybe because I frantically added a teaspoon more of flour than called for?) so I mixed the apples in them instead - not a bad strategy, actually. The Granny Smith apples were pleasantly tart, in contrast to the syrup. I'm thinking that next time I could reduce the butter as well, maybe to 1/3 cup.

These mini apple pies are definitely better than McDonald's Apple *cough* Chayote Pie *cough*. However, I am still on the lookout for the perfect Apple Pie filling. I am also going to add nutmeg next time.

Second Bake: Whole Grain Double Fudge Brownies

So today is another weekend, which meant that I was baking yet another project. This time a King Arthur Flour recipe. It's included in the Whole Grain Baking book and also in the website so I tried it out. I have to say, though I followed almost everything to a T, the result was a semi-disaster :(


First of all, the Whole Wheat Double Fudge Brownies were...okay. Okay, which means they're passable but not great. I realize now that my tastebuds have become so demanding that almost anything I would come up with would not meet my expectations. I'm starting to think now that the reason I thought I was an OK cook back in Japan was that back then, my standards were quite low - as long as it's edible, I could live with it. But not anymore. So, I have my work cut out for me.

I did some modifications, some to suit my tastes and some because I had no choice. Here are the changes:

1. Used 1 cup + 1/4 muscovado sugar vs. 2 cups of dark/light brown sugar. I originally was planning only 1 cup because I was putting in honeyed walnuts, but I tasted the mixed liquid ingredients and thought they were too bitter so I added some more.
2. Used 2 tsps. First Pick Nescafe Instant Coffee Powder instead of 1 tsp espresso powder. The result wasn't bad, but I think I'll stick with the recommended 1 tsp next time so the brownies wouldn't taste as dark.
3. McCormick Vanilla Flavor, as I couldn't find Vanilla extract anywhere! *sigh*
4. 5 eggs instead of 4 large eggs, since eggs here are puny. I used the conversion guide here.
5. Added honeyed walnuts.

COMMENTARY:

I used a 500-gram bar of the Tulip brand of semisweet chocolate that I chopped up into morsels - bought at SweetCraft because it was ultra cheap (about Php 80). I tasted it a bit while I was chopping. It tasted like cheapo chocolate. Personally, I wouldn't eat it even if I was paid, but I guess it was OK for trying out baking with chocolate. I was hoping the cocoa and other stuff would cancel the horrible stuff out - and yes, that was what happened. It didn't taste horrible in the final product, but I'm going to buy something better (even if it was more expensive) next time!

The book recipe, which is what I followed, called for mixing the baking powder with the liquid ingredients, while the online version called for mixing the baking powder with the flour. I think I'll stick with mixing the baking powder with the flour as an extra protection against activating the baking powder.

I think I may have overmixed the batter a tad, but nothing so major. The BIGGEST BLUNDER I did, however, was that after I had the batter and the greased pan with parchment all ready, was that I realized I didn't have the oven preheated!! What a terrible mistake!! I'm afraid the extra time waiting for the oven to heat up may have negatively affected the batter. And not only that, I think I had some oven temperature problems. Because I was in a hurry, I may not have set the oven temperature right. Due to space constraints, the thermometer was in front of the oven door, and the temperature reading may have been lower than it really was at the middle. I set the temperature at 325F (25F lower due to a darker, nonstick pan), and according to the oven thermometer, the optimum setting was between 6 and 7. However, I'm thinking I may have had better results if I set the correct temperature during preheating in the first place, and not have to bother with constant readjusting, which may have had a negative effect. I set the timer at 24 minutes (5 minutes less than the recommended time), but the edges weren't shrinking so I set it another 8 minutes. I remember that I was smelling a slightly burnt chocolate smell about 15 - 20 minutes in. After 32 minutes, I realized the edges weren't shrinking at all, and when I pulled out the pan and checked the center with a toothpick, it came out totally clean - UH-OH. I didn't care anymore about letting the brownie rest in the pan overnight. I cut it immediately as soon as the pan would allow, and my fears were confirmed - overcooked brownies with very hard edges, no thanks to the nonstick dark pans.

So now I'm stuck with brownies with very hard tops and a dense cake-like texture, kinda like a cake that has gone hard. I'm very disappointed, but I'd like to try the recipe again with new strategies. Here are the modifications I'll do next time:

Planned Modifications:
1. Mix the baking powder with dry ingredients.
2. Use better chocolate
3. Use an aluminum pan - IMPORTANT!
4. Scale the recipe for a smaller pan - the yield is too high.
5. Check the cooking time very early - maybe as early as 15 mins. Laura did say that she takes out brownies early because they continue cooking while in the pan.

First Bake: Whole Wheat Banana Bread

When I came home this weekend, I had a lot of pleasant surprises waiting for me. I had 5 packages in! One was from Chad Lawson, who generously gave me his CD, "Set on a Hill". It's an album full of beautiful and soothing solo piano music. I'm really happy that he remembered. I wish I could give back to him in some way, but I don't know how!

My other packages were from Betterworld Books and Amazon. One of the Betterworld package came with a nice milk chocolate bar with rice crispies (Divine, a fair trade chocolate company). I munched on it while browsing my new books - it was quite good, considering that I don't really like milk chocolate anymore nowadays. Even better the next day after I put it in the fridge.

My new books were a couple of cardmaking books, Nyan's origami book, and the stars of the show, my TWO new baking books dedicated to healthier baking. One was the 2nd hand Pillsbury Healthy Baking Book, and the other one was my much-awaited King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking Book. I love them both, though I think the KAF book might be more practical considering that the information about whole grain baking is newer and if focuses solely on whole grains (the Pillsbury book dates from 1994), but at least the Pillsbury book has a lot of reduced fat and half-whole wheat recipes.

So I decided that after all the research and dreaming, it was time to do some BAKING! But before that, I went to Marquee Mall and shopped for MORE supplies - I have a knack for hoarding all sorts of kitchen stuff as though I was a pro and racking up huge charges in the process, since my "perfectionist" streak always gets the better of me. However, I did chance upon a lot of useful stuff, such as a silicone spatula, a nice wooden spoon, lots of Baker's Secret Pans that are affordable considering the bump in quality, and wonder of wonders - an oven thermometer! I never dreamed I'd find one in Angeles. I ended up with 800+ PHP measuring cup and spoon set, though. These babies better be worth it!

So for my first try, I chose Whole Wheat Banana Bread from the Pillsbury book, since it's a quick bread and is supposedly very forgiving. I checked the recipe vs. Laura's and the only differences are the half whole wheat flour and the salt so I went ahead and did the Pillsbury version. I have to say, I think I chose the right recipe - it is indeed very forgiving, despite the numerous blunders I made along the way.

List of blunders:
1. I melted the butter in the preheated oven. The common way to melt it is through stovetop or microwave. Still, can't the oven suffice? I was scared I might do something to the butter so I removed it while it still had a few lumps, but I don't see any adverse effect.
2. I immediately put in the sugar together with the flours. It was supposed to be mixed into the butter. I was praying it wouldn't spell disaster. Fortunately, it didn't (thanks to the forgiving recipe).
3. The butter clumped up when I put in the water into the egg-mashed bananas-butter mixture. I briefly placed it in the oven so the butter will melt a little. Thankfully, I don't notice any ill effects (see how forgiving it is?)
4. The last 1/2 banana I put in wasn't mashed properly, and as a result I see some banana bits in the bread.

List of changes made:
1. Used approx. 2/3 cup sugar instead of 1 cup.
2. Baked approximately 35 minutes at 350F instead of 55 to 65 minutes
3. Used 1 mini loaf nonstick pan and 1 7" aluminum loaf pan.
4. Used 4 bananas (the lakatan were a bit on the small side; instead of 2 or 3)

I was scared I was overmixing the batter, so I tried as much as possible not to move it around too much. The banana bread wasn't dense, so maybe I did the mixing right or it was just the baking soda or the 2-time sifting. It was very nice watching the bread puff up in the oven. My oven thermometer is heaven-sent. I immediately found out that our oven is 25F off, so I adjusted the temperature - achieved a perfect 350F. However, I just couldn't make up my mind whether the bread was done or not (the crust was puffy, brown and developed early on which scared me) so I ended up bringing out and putting back the mini loaf pan into the oven. I set my timer at 45 minutes, but in the end I think I only managed barely 35 minutes due to my impatience and paranoia. But still it's a good thing, because I learned a few things:

1. Nonstick bakeware develop an nice brown crust and cook faster. According to the Baking 911 site, when cooking with glassware or darker nonstick pans, one should lower the temperature by 25F.
2. The aluminum pan loaf, though cooked a bit longer (due to not having been brought out), did not develop a crust at the sides and could have stood baking a few more minutes (maybe 45 mins. or more).
3. Nonstick bakeware are great for pound cakes due to the nice even crust. Aluminum pans are good for achivieng no-crusts.
4. Both of the cakes were easy to remove, the nonstick one a bit more so. I butter-greased the bottoms only.


Suggestions for next baking:
1. Cut the sugar to 1/2 cup, Mommy's request
2. Add more bananas (2 more, or 6 bananas total).
4. Add nuts (walnuts!)
5. Lower the temperature by 25F, increase baking time to at least 45 mins (though checking carefully after 35 mins).
6. Invest in 2 more mini loaf pans. They are a great size!
7. Thoroughly melt the butter.
8. Consider adding lukewarm water next time (prepare in advance, and not from the tap!)

Others:
1. Buy some baking gloves
2. Get a flour sifter, so the flour doesn't fly all over while sifting.

All in all, I'm still very pleased with my first try. The gods (or GOD), must be smiling down on me today :) I can't wait to bake more next week! :D