Banana Bread Recipe

Cooking Time: 1 hour

Servings: 5 loaves

Preparation Time: 10 minutes

• 1 cup butter


• 2.5 cup sugar


• 4 eggs


• 2 tsp vanilla


• 2 cup buttermilk(or 2 cup milk w/ 1tb white vinegar)


• 4 cups all purpose flour


• 1 cup whole wheat flour


• 2tsp baking soda,


• 2tsp salt,


• 4 cup mashed ripe banana's..

Directions:

preheat oven to 350F

Grease 5 loaf pans and set aside

in bowl add both of the flour's, baking soda, and salt..set aside. cream butter & sugar in mixer, add eggs & vanilla, add bananas, then add flour mixture and milk alternating between the 2. Do not over mix or it get's tough!!

bake 350F about 1 hour

Makes 5 loaves (recipe can be cut in 1/2 if you want to make less)

Freezes well, just wrap in foil making sure all ended are sealed.

Piece of Pancake

Today I have a sudden urge to make pancakes as dessert (heheh)... but I don't have much ingredients left in my kitchen cupboard... :( It has been a while since I cook... When I look at those inspiring food blogs, it makes me wanna grab my kitchen utensil and start baking again! :-) I must say their blogs are truly wonderful to read and at the same time motivating.

Below were the pancake recipe which I copied from a blog...

Whole Wheat Pancakes

3/4 cup quick-cooking oats
1 1/2 cups plus
2 tablespoons well-shaken buttermilk,
divided 3/4 cup whole-wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons fresh pomegranate seeds
2 tablespoons chopped walnuts

Soak oats in 3/4 cup buttermilk 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in a large bowl.

Stir egg, butter, brown sugar, remaining 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk, and oat mixture into dry ingredients until just combined.

Heat a griddle over medium heat until hot and lightly brush with oil. Working in batches, pour 1/4 cup batter per pancake onto griddle and cook until bubbles appear on surface and undersides are golden-brown, about 1 minute. Flip with a spatula and cook other side, about 1 minute more. (Lightly oil griddle between batches.)

Adapted from Gourmet


Honey Nectarine Pancakes
(makes about 12 medium sized cakes)

Dry Ingredients
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda

Wet Ingredients
2 eggs
1 1/5 cup buttermilk (or milk, in a pinch)
1 tbsp honey

2 ripe nectarines

First, bring a pot of water to a rollicking boil. With a small paring knife, score the nectarines on the bottom (cut a little cross in the skin), and then drop the fruit into the boiling water for 2 minutes. Fish them out and rinse under cold water. Peel the skin off starting with the place where you scored the nectarines. If the nectarines are ripe, the skin should come off pretty easily. This also works with peaches. Core and dice the nectarines into bite sized squares.

Now, heat a little butter in a frying pan on medium heat. Whisk all the dry ingredients together. In a different, largish bowl, whisk all the wet ingredients together. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon or spatula until you can't see the flour anymore. Make sure to get to the bottom of the bowl because flour is tricky and likes to hide down there. The batter will be pretty lumpy, but that's ok.

With a small ladle, drop a little bit of batter onto the frying pan to make cakes about 3 inches in diameter (or whatever diameter you like them, really). Drop a few nectarine pieces on top of each pancake. When you see bubbles forming on top of the pancakes, flip them over for another 30 seconds to 1 minute. Continue until you're out of batter (if you'll be making lots of pancakes, heat the oven to 100F and store the finished pancakes on a cookie sheet in the oven to keep them warm). Serve drizzled with honey.

First Baking

Hahaha... Today early in the morning me and hbby woke up early (as usual) for our morning routine. After breakfast at about 8.45am, we started to plan out itenary for today. Hmmp.... what should we do for today? Both of us wanted to spend quality time together as most couples do. So I suggested that we do our baking today! FYI, I have been postponing it for ages now.... today is a good day to start baking again. Today also will be the official day I use my brand new oven (from Elba model no. EO-3586) which I purchased it in Nov last year... :) Lookind forward to use it until today officially using it. :D

For more info about the oven please go to: http://www.elba.com.my/sa-electricoven-EO3586.htm?a=16

So my hubby and I started to get ready to go shopping for the baking ingredients... to my suprised, actually there's a lot of ingredients which were still new for me like what is pandan paste, what does the different between essence and extract, what does baking paper look like, and how many holes of cupcakes tray should I buy (there are 6 holes and 12 holes)?????? hahaha... I know... funny rite? :) Well, I once hear, never give up learning till the day we die. I'm gald that I at least now, know what are those already... ;-)

Well, after 2 hours of driving around the city to find the necessary ingredients and tools we were home. We were so excited to see what's the final outcome of the cake that we wanted to make... Guess what?? After around 1 hour of whisking, measuring, cracking and blistering, we finally managed to mix all necessary ingrediants into the baking tray.

So we put it into the oven for baking for 40 mins. To my suprise, the out come is not what I expected. I asked my hubby to help constantly check the oven while it's baking but he just never once do that for me (what kinda husband is this???). Apart of his lapton and his handphone, I'm just transparent to him!!! Very like his parents' bad behaviour which he never seemed to curb for 10 years now.... very disappointed in him and my cake.

Oh btw, the cake I'm making today is chocolate moist cake. But I guess thoughout this process I've learnt a lot. (1) never to trust your husband for looking after your cake (2) must take out butter to cool down first before baking (3) learn how to operate your oven.

For more info about conventional oven, please read the following:

1. Understand the effects of oven positions. Each level of the oven has a different cooking impact and it is useful to know this in order to get the best results:
- Top level of the oven - this level is best for quick cooking and high temperature cooking
- Middle level of the oven - this level is good for moderate temperature cooking
- Bottom level of the oven - this level is best for slow cooking and low temperature cooking

2. Be able to make general oven temperature conversions. It is very useful to have a general notion of the oven temperatures in both Celsius and Fahrenheit so that you can bake recipes from cookbooks that use either temperature. The most common conversions that are useful to know are:
~ 160ºC - 325ºF
~ 180ºC - 350ºF
~ 190ºC - 375ºF
~ 200ºC - 400ºF

3. Learn the temperature ranges. When a recipe calls for using an oven at a specified temperature range, these are the following temperatures:
* Cool/slow - 110 - 140ºC 225 - 275ºF Gas 1/4 - 1
* Moderately slow - 150 - 160ºC 300 - 325ºF Gas 2 - 3
* Moderate/warm - 180 - 190ºC 350 - 375ºF Gas 4 - 5
* Moderately hot - 190 - 220ºC 375 - 425ºF Gas 5 - 6
* Hot - 220 - 230ºC 425 - 450ºF Gas 6 - 8
* Very hot - 250 - 260ºC 475 - 500ºF Gas 9 - 10

4. Reduce heat for fan-forced ovens. Fan-forced or convection ovens are more efficient at pushing around the heat during cooking. This means that the food is cooked more quickly and evenly than in a conventional oven - the shorter cooking time and lower temperatures required save energy and make cooking more economical. It remains important to follow the instructions for your oven but in general, these basic rules apply to use of fan-forced ovens:

- Reduce the cooking temperature for baking by 13ºC/25ºF, especially when the cooking time is under 15 minutes but cook for the same length of time suggested in the recipe;

- Reduce the cooking time by 25% for roasting and cook at the same temperature suggested in the recipe.

- Keep a record of changes in cooking times and temperatures for your favourite recipes for future reference if you own a fan-forced oven.

5. Preheat the oven prior to cooking. It is important to always preheat the oven to the temperature suggested by the recipe, unless otherwise stated. This will ensure that the oven is at the right temperature when you add the item for cooking (for about 15 mins).

Anyway, above was the out our of my first chocolate moist cake. Hope ya'll enjoyed it. :)