King Arthur Banana Bread

Finally used up our stash of over-ripe frozen bananas. We eat a log of bananas. Ocassionaly, we don't finish them off before they are too ripe so we toss them in the freezer whole - peel and all. When you need them, take them out of the freezer and thaw. Or you can peel them while frozen and nuke to defrost. They're also great for making a smoothie while still frozen (sans peel of course).

Used a recipe from King Arthur Flour and their white whole wheat flour. The crumb is nice and the texture even. It's slightly dry for my taste. Probably should substitute some of the butter with applesauce, use egg substitute, and perhaps use a 50/50 mix of whole wheat and white flour.

Ingredients

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at cool room temperature
2/3 cup brown sugar, light or dark, firmly packed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 medium or 2 large bananas)
3 tablespoons apricot jam or orange marmalade, optional but tasty
1/4 cup honey
2 large eggs
2 1/4 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, optional

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Lightly grease a 9" x 5" loaf pan.

In a large bowl, combine the butter, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, beating till smooth.

Add the mashed bananas, jam, honey, and eggs, again beating until smooth.

Add the flour, then the walnuts, stirring just until smooth.

Spoon the batter into the prepared loaf pan, smoothing the top. Let it rest at room temperature for 10 minutes.

Bake the bread for 45 minutes, then gently lay a piece of aluminum foil across the top, to prevent over-browning.

Bake for an additional 25 minutes. Remove the bread from the oven; a long toothpick or cake tester inserted into the center should come out clean, with at most a few wet crumbs clinging to it. The tester shouldn't show any sign of uncooked batter. If it does, bake the bread an additional 5 minutes, or until it tests done.

Allow the bread to cool for 10 minutes in the pan. Remove it from the pan, and cool it completely on a rack.


Nutritional Info

Serving Size 1 slice (60g)
Servings Per Batch 18
Amount Per Serving

Calories 170 
Calories from Fat 50 
Total Fat 6g 
Saturated Fat 3.5g 
Trans Fat 0g 
Cholesterol 35mg
Sodium 230mg
Total Carbohydrate 27g
Dietary Fiber 1g
Sugars 14g
Protein 3g

King Arthur Amish Dinner Rolls

This is a tweaked version of the Amish Dinner Roll recipe from the King Arthur Flour Baker's Catalogue. 

You can find the original recipe here http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/amish-dinner-rolls-recipe

Ingredients

2 eggs
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
6 tablespoons butter
1 cup mashed potatoes
2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
3/4 cup potato water (water used to boil potatoes)
4 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Instructions
Combine all of the ingredients in the bowl of your Kitchen-aid mixer. Mix the dough with a dough hook, knead for 8 minutes. Resist the urge to add more flour, the dough will be very sticky.

Remove the dough from the mixer bowl to a floured surface. Knead the dough by hand for a couple of minutes. The dough should now be smooth and shiny.

Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, turn to coat, and cover with plastic wrap sprayed with Pam to prevent sticking. Allow dough to rise until doubled in bulk, about 90 minutes.

Dump the dough onto a floured surface. Knead a few times to work out bubbles. With a stainless steel dough scraper, divide the dough into 16 equal pieces. The next part is a bit complicated to explain. You need to roll the dough into smooth balls.

Dust your hands with flour. Place a piece of dough on the half curled finger tips of both hands with your palms facing up. Gently stretch the dough into a mushroom cap by pressing your thumbs down the side of the dough ball whilst pressing your fingers up. Pinch the bottom of the dough together to form a ball. Rotate the dough ball half a turn to the right or left, keeping the pinched end down. Repeat a few times, dusting your hands as needed. You should find the top and sides of the dough ball get smoother with each turn. If this is a bit complicated, you can always roll the dough ball in your hands but the resulting ball won't be as smooth.

Lightly grease a pan. For pull-apart-rolls, place the dough balls about half an inch apart on the pan. This will give you rolls with a nice brown top and bottom, and nice white sides where they touch. For stand-alone-rolls, place the dough balls about 2 inches apart. Cover the rolls with plastic wrap sprayed with Pam, and allow to rise for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until they are quite puffy. The pull-apart-rolls with be touching each other.

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees. Bake the rolls on the center rack, for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Carefully slide the rolls onto a cooling rack, and brush them with melted butter if desired.

Nutritional Information 

per serving (1 roll = 74g)

200 calories
6 grams fat
5 grams protein
28 grams complex carbohydrates
4 grams sugar
1 gram dietary fiber
41 milligrams cholesterol
223 milligrams sodium
117 milligrams potassium

Vegan Pumpkin and Cranberry Muffins Recipe - Modified

My first attempt at Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Vegan Pumpkin Muffin didn't fare well. They were undercooked and dense. I was pretty sure the cranberries added too much moisture to the basic recipe.

A small adjustment (1/2 the soy milk) and an ingredient substitution (substitute 1/2 of the oil with apple sauce) gave better results. I think baking them longer helped too. 

Here's the modified recipe.

Vegan Pumpkin and Cranberry Muffin

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups King Arthur all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground or freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup pureed pumpkin (not pie mix)
1/4 cup soy milk (reduced from original recipe's 1/2 cup)
1/4 cup vegetable oil (reduced from original recipe's 1/2 cup)

1/4 cup natural apple sauce (to reduce original recipe's vegetable oil)

1 cup whole fresh cranberries
2 tablespoons maple syrup (original recipe is molasses)

Directions

Preheat oven to 400°F. Use paper muffin liners or lightly grease a twelve-muffin tin.

Roughly chop the cranberries. I like larger chunks of cranberry in the muffin. 

Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and spices. In a separate bowl, whisk together pumpkin, soy milk, oil, apple sauce, chopped cranberries, and maple syrup. Mix together the wet and dry ingredients.

Evenly fill the muffin cups. Mine ended up about three-fourths full. Bake for 25 to 28 minutes, until a toothpick or knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Nutritional Information


Per Muffin
Calories 193.6
Total Fat 2.9 g
Saturated Fat 1.8 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0.1 g
Monounsaturated Fat 0.1 g
Cholesterol 0.0 mg
Sodium 175.8 mg
Potassium 93.4 mg
Total Carbohydrate 41.2 g
Dietary Fiber 1.8 g
Sugars 24.2 g
Protein 2.4 g

King Arthur Banana Bread

Finally used up our stash of over-ripe frozen bananas. We eat a log of bananas. Occasionally, we don't finish them off before they are too ripe so we toss them in the freezer whole - peel and all. When you need them, take them out of the freezer and thaw. Or you can peel them while frozen and nuke to defrost. They're also great for making a smoothie while still frozen (sans peel of course).


Used a recipe from King Arthur Flour and their white whole wheat flour. The crumb is nice and the texture even. It's slightly dry for my taste. Probably should substitute some of the butter with applesauce, use egg substitute, and perhaps use a 50/50 mix of whole wheat and white flour.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at cool room temperature
2/3 cup brown sugar, light or dark, firmly packed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 medium or 2 large bananas)
3 tablespoons apricot jam or orange marmalade, optional but tasty
1/4 cup honey
2 large eggs
2 1/4 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, optional

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 325°F. Lightly grease a 9" x 5" loaf pan.

In a large bowl, combine the butter, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, beating till smooth.

Add the mashed bananas, jam, honey, and eggs, again beating until smooth.

Add the flour, then the walnuts, stirring just until smooth.

Spoon the batter into the prepared loaf pan, smoothing the top. Let it rest at room temperature for 10 minutes.

Bake the bread for 45 minutes, then gently lay a piece of aluminum foil across the top, to prevent over-browning.

Bake for an additional 25 minutes. Remove the bread from the oven; a long toothpick or cake tester inserted into the center should come out clean, with at most a few wet crumbs clinging to it. The tester shouldn't show any sign of uncooked batter. If it does, bake the bread an additional 5 minutes, or until it tests done.

Allow the bread to cool for 10 minutes in the pan. Remove it from the pan, and cool it completely on a rack.


Nutritional Info:
Serving Size 1 slice (60g)
Servings Per Batch 18
Amount Per Serving
Calories 170
Calories from Fat 50
Total Fat 6g
Saturated Fat 3.5g
Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 35mg
Sodium 230mg
Total Carbohydrate 27g
Dietary Fiber 1g
Sugars 14g
Protein 3g