Monday brunch

Joanna joined us for brunch today, and despite being snowed in this morning and unable to go to the store, we still managed to put out a pretty good spread. 

The star of the brunch was my cinnamon swirl bread, with my dry and much less successful banana bread hiding behind it.  (For those who love my usual banana bread, this was a new recipe, so I'll put up both but recommend that you stick with the Joy of Cooking recipe.  Lesson: whole wheat flour is not the same as whole wheat pastry flour.)  You can't see it in the photo, but the steam was actually still rising out of the cinnamon bread!  I'm looking forward to cinnamon bread toast for breakfast this week.

I find that a lot of people are intimidated by making bread, and I definitely was myself when I started a few years ago.  You need two things to make bread properly: 1) time, and 2) a good set of hands.  You need to let this bread rise for a total of 3 hours, and you need your hands to get used to feeling when the dough has been kneaded sufficiently.  But after a few loaves, you will definitely get the hang of it!  And don't ask me how to adapt this for a bread machine - I don't own one and never will.

Cinnamon swirl bread
Adapted from: The Joy of Cooking
      Grade: A- (time consuming to make, as most yeast breads are, but much simpler than many and extremely soft and tasty)
The original recipe is for a cinnamon raisin bread, but since I never stock raisins (Rob is not a fan...) I just left them out.  If you'd like to make this with raisins, place 1/2 cup raisins in a asauce pan and cover with cold water - bring to a boil, then drain and cool and apply them with the first application of cinnamon sugar.

This is based from a milk bread dough, which is very versatile and can be used to make a variety of different things, such as biscuits, sandwich bread, or in this case a sweet treat!


2 1/4 tsp (1 package) dry yeast (as always, nothing fancy here)
3 tbsp warm (105F-115F) water
1 cup milk (any fat content, but probably best not to use skim - I use 1%), warmed to 105F-115F
5 tbsp melted butter (+ another 1 1/2 tsp for brushing on the dough)
3 tbsp sugar
1 egg (+ 1 egg for the egg wash)
1 tsp salt
2 cups bread flour
1 1/2 - 2 cups all purpose flour
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

Mix the yeast and water in a bowl and let the yeast dissolve for 5 min.  Then add the milk, butter (only 5 tbsp), sugar, egg, and salt.  Mix in the bread flour, I find 1/2 cup at a time is manageable.  Then mix in 1 cup of the all purpose flour.  At this point, the dough should be pretty sticky but forming a ball.  Flour your work surface and hands; turn the dough out onto the work surface.  At this point, work in the remaining all purpose flour.  I like to do this by spreading the dough out a little, exposing the sticky parts, and covering that with about 1/4 cup flour, then folding the dough over on itself and kneading it for a minute or two until it feels like the flour was evenly dispersed.  Keep doing that until the dough is no longer sticky, but don't let the dough get too rigid either.  You want it to be nice and elastic, but not sticky.  Once it gets to that point, put it in an oiled bowl, turn it over once to coat with oil, then cover loosely with saran wrap and let it rise 1-1 1/2 hour until it is doubled in size (for me, that's usually 1 1/2 hours).

If you're using the raisins, now's the time to prepare them.  Additionally, combine the sugar and cinnamon.  When the dough is done rising, punch it down by gently compressing your fist into the center of the dough and letting it deflate a bit.  Turn it out onto a lightly floured work surface and roll into an 8" wide rectangle.  Coat the rectangle with the melted butter (the additional 1 1/2 tsp) and then top with all but 2 tsp of the cinnamon sugar mix (and raisins if you want).  Now, start at one 8" wide end and roll the dough up like a jelly roll.  Pinch the sides and the seam when you're done.  Oil a bread pan and place the dough seam side down into the pan.  Cover with saran wrap and let it rise another 1-1 1/2 hours.  (If you don't have a bread pan, I have sometimes used a cake pan for other breads, compressing them very gently to make more of a rounded loaf.)

Finally, preheat the oven to 375F.  Brush the bread with the egg wash (1 egg + pinch of salt) and sprinkle with the remaining cinnamon sugar.  Bake for 40-45 minutes until the bread sounds hollow when tapped.  I would suggest not skipping this step, like I did: While the bread is still hot and in the pan, brush with an additional 2 tsp melted butter.  I think this helps the cinnamon sugar adhere to the top of the loaf so it doesn't spill all over your counter when you turn the dough out of the pan, like mine did.  But it was still delicious!


Banana and toasted almond bread 
Adapted from: The Kripalu Cookbook
     Grade: C (Way too dry and hard, and a disappointing flavor)
I usually have very good luck with recipes from this cookbook, so I think the problem was that I tried to use whole wheat flour rather than whole wheat pastry flour.  Pastry flours have less protein than all purpose or bread flours, so they form less gluten in the finished product, and too much gluten = hard bread.



2 3/4 cup sliced bananas
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 cup rice syrup (I don't stock this, so I used about 1/3 cup honey)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (original calls for 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour)
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour (original calls for 1 cup)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder (whole wheat flours take a little more leavening than regular flours, I find)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp allspice
pinch nutmeg (original calls for cardamom)
2/3 cup roasted almonds (or you could use walnuts)

Preheat the oven to 375F.  In a food processor, combine the bananas and oil until just mixed (I think I went too far - my mixture was liquidy).  Place the mixture in a bowl and add the honey.  In another bowl, combine the dry ingredients, except the nuts.  Add the dry ingredients in batches to the bananas and mix.  Add the toasted almonds (toast them in an oven or toaster oven at 350F for 5min or so).  Place the dough in an oiled bread pan and bake for 40 minutes or until the toothpick comes out clean.  Cool on a rack (out of the dog's reach!).


For a fool proof banana bread recipe that is sure to be a crowd pleaser, try this:

Banana bread
From: The Joy of Cooking
Grade: A! (A dependable and easy recipe to make with a delicious taste!)


2-3 ripe bananas
1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
5 1/3 tsp butter (have this at room temp or in a pinch, soften in the microwave)
2/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Combine the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder.  In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar, then add the flour mixture and beat (or stir) in until the consistency resembles brown sugar.  Stir in the eggs and then fold in the bananas.  This is the cool part: the dough will be very dry, but keep stirring - it will suddenly release into a gooey bread batter!  I'm sure there's some chemistry behind it, but I haven't thought about it hard enough...  Scrape the batter into an oiled bread pan and bake for 50-60 minutes (toothpick test!).