Bake #1: Banana and Honey Teabread
Hi again! I'm glad to be back! So, I have finally finished my first attempted recipe in Mary Berry's Baking Bible. I am a little overdue on my two week deadline...which is leading me to realistically aim for a recipe post every three weeks. Although I have a sinking feeling that if I extend my deadline, I may end up not posting for four weeks! So I will stick to the two week deadline from this post for my next recipe and see how that goes for now. :) I am also late because I had bought some bananas and waited for them to ripen, and then they over-riped and went bad...so I bought some more and had to wait for them to ripen too. I didn't forget about them second time around though! They turned out to be just nicely speckled brown, and not black...so I had a promising start, or second go, at this recipe!
I'm so glad I chose this recipe for my first baking blog attempt, because a) I thought it would be a good starter recipe as it contained a small list of ingredients, and b) because I have been drooling over the photo in the book for a while! This recipe is featured on pages 304-305. It has been an enjoyable bake from start to finish and I highly recommend it for an afternoon weekend tea with family and friends.
So, starting off on the right foot... or "mixing with the right hand," I won't be including the recipe in my post, but I will explain any substitutions I had to make, tips with oven temperature (since Canadian ovens seem to be rather different than English ovens), and of course the things I wish I had done differently. So, here we go... "Ready, Set...BAKE!"
Well, even at the beginning of this recipe, I realized I had already completely forgotten one of Mary Berry's baking tips from her book. And it was the very first one... I guess I was too excited and went ahead full steam! So, I will include her first tip: "Always read the recipe carefully, checking that you have enough time and all the ingredients to make the cake before you begin." Well, I was missing an ingredient and then I had to make a substitution. I'm sorry Mary! Tip is now remembered and will be put to better use next time! So, my substitution involved using cinnamon instead of nutmeg. I had also considered using a ground mixed spice, which includes: cinnamon, coriander, ginger, dill seed, and nutmeg. However, sometimes less is more, and because the recipe called for such a small amount of nutmeg, I was sure an identical small amount of cinnamon would be fine. Nutmeg is a wonderful, cozy, fall and winter spice, as is cinnamon...so they sort of go together like peanut butter and jelly, right? :) Mixing all of these ingredients together filled the kitchen with such a comforting smell. The batter smelled much like a Christmas cake batter, or a poppyseed loaf batter. The combination of bananas, honey, and lemon smelled wonderful. I mixed the ingredients quite thoroughly with a wooden spoon - me being old fashioned again! The batter wasn't lumpy, but not completely smooth either, so it had a little bit of texture to it. I think this was probably a result of not mashing the bananas completely smooth before adding them to the mixture. Measurements can be tricky... I'm lucky my Mum is from England and so she does have a weighing scale which she bought over there. If you can invest in one they do save a bit of headache. I'm sure they would be available for purchase online. Again, something I may look into at a later date and let you know. Spoon measurements, and fluid ounces are fine, it is just when you get into measuring ounces of sugar, flour, etc. For example, I found that 1 oz of sugar or flour = roughly 1/8 of a regular measuring cup. So, if you can, I highly recommend ordering a weighing scale from England. It definitely helps! You can see the white scale I was using in this photo... along with my mess! You'll notice how I avoid taking photos near the sink in the kitchen. I'll work on cleanup skills next week while I'm baking. :)
The recipe called for a 2 lb loaf pan, so I took my best guess with some of the baking pans I had. I ended up using a smaller pan which measured roughly 8.5" x 4.5" by 2.5" deep. I greased the pan, and then lined it with parchment paper. I always find this helps to keep it in place better. A friend of my Mum's sent over some loaf parchment cases from England, so I gave one of those a try and they worked wonderfully. I will keep an eye out for them in the stores over here. Perhaps they have them at Michaels, or the Bulk Barn, but I will remember to look out for them and I'll let you know if I find them! They do save some time with fidgeting and cutting the paper. Always try and level your batter as evenly as possible to help create an even rise. Somehow I did this and it still raised up! Which did turn out to be a nice loaf, although it still didn't look like the picture suggested!
My next predicament turned out to be the oven. Always make sure your oven is preheated and ready to go, before you start mixing anything. This goes for any recipe you undertake, and yes, Mary was wonderful at reminding me about that at the beginning of the recipe. Thank you Mary. It is definitely going to take me a bit to get back into the baking world. So, yes, the oven. Mary does also include a conversion chart for temperatures, she is so helpful! I'm so glad I'm baking with her! So this recipe called for 160 degree Celsius oven, which turned out to be a 325 degree Fahrenheit Canadian oven. I also made sure I had the oven working with the fan, to help distribute the heat evenly. However, with the first 20 mins or so, I noticed it was beginning to crack. So, according to another tip from Mary, "If cakes crack on top during baking, it means that the oven was too hot or the cake was placed too high on a shelf." I placed my loaf pan on the centre rack in the oven, so perhaps one lower down next time. Or, maybe the oven should be turned down to 300 degrees, as having the fan also creates more heat in the oven. The baking time called for 75 minutes, and my loaf completely baked nicely with a nicely browned top in 65 minutes. Always check yours with a needle to see if it comes out clean to see if it has baked properly. I let it cool in the pan for nearly 15 minutes, it could have used longer I think. This helps give it some time to settle and shrink from the sides so that it comes out of the pan easily. I later decorated it on top with some honey and decorative sugar once it had time to cool.
So, something I still need to figure out is how to prevent cracking, but I've realized in this baking challenge it has to do with the amount of heat, and maybe perhaps the size of my loaf pan. Perhaps next time I should use a slightly larger, or deeper pan. Trial and error! :) However, I was really pleased with the taste and texture of this loaf. It was wonderfully soft, savoury and sweet! I think the lemon zest in the recipe overpowers the honey slightly, but just the right amount as it adds a nice tang to the tastebuds, and proves it to be a light and refreshing loaf. Great for tea time, and not only for the weekends! It keeps well in an air-tight tin for a couple days as well. I didn't have a chance to freeze it, we ate it too fast! But I'm sure it would keep in the freezer well too. Great first go, and I loved the fragrance it made in the kitchen.
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! See you in a couple weeks.
I will end with "Ready, Set, BAKE!"
~*Next Bake Coming Soon*~
