Category Archives: Baking Bread

Banana Honey Bread

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Honey is such a versatile ingredient for cooking. My pantry is never with out it, and no small jars of it for us. I have a 3 litre container of bush honey which my dad got for me from his local area and a pot of creamed honey I had bought at a local old lady charity shop down south. Both are delicious. Even though nobody in this household actually eats it straight, it is used in lots of different cooking. From smoothies, tea, coffee, chai, muffins, apple crumble, cakes, biscuits and for this recent recipe Banana Honey Bread.

Honey can be traced back to Egyptian times, used for the making of Mead, used medicinally, you can preserve  it for a really long time and as I like to use it- as a natural exfoliant when doing a facial. (Try it, the honey works really well.)

Today its for making bread though. Add some bananas that need to get used up, add a few more bready ingredients and you are away. A cheap, tasty snack or something different for breakfast.

 

Banana Honey Bread

* adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Happy Days with the Naked Chef

3 1/2 cups strong bread flour

100mls water

whizzed up banana- about 4 medium sized ones

1 tps cinnamon

1 tbs raw sugar

1 tbs salt

2 1/2 tps dried yeast

2 tbs honey

1/2 cup linseed meal

* extra honey and flaked almonds for the top.

Mix all ingredients with a dough hook in mixmaster, until combined well and pulls away from the edges. The dough looks quite wet and glossy. Cover with cling wrap and leave in a warm spot until doubled in size. Knock it back, quick knead, and leave to prove until doubled in size again. Shape the dough into small balls and place next to each other on a lined tray. Leave for half an hour. Drizzle more honey on top and scatter flaked almonds.

Cook at 210 C for about 20 minutes.

Easy thing to have for breakfast, a snack, or whack in the freezer and get out as needed. The Little Monkey loves these, and if he is having a fussy day eating, these always get gobbled down.

Honey Ricotta Bread

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“Mama, this tastes better than cupcakes!”

Recently while watching Italian Food Safari a few weeks ago, they cooked up a wonderful looking Ricotta Bread but they hadn’t laid out any recipes on the website- much to my disappointment. Not finding any other recipes elsewhere that seemed just right, I decided to venture out in to the unknown by myself.

It was a little nerve-wracking, there was a dash of timidness, and a sprinkling of hope. I have only been playing around with breads a relatively short time, and I wasn’t exactly sure it was time to be branching off and making stuff up just yet… hasn’t stopped me before though. So feet first (so to speak of course) I dove into that dough. I figured at worst, it will be stodgy little brick and I will still have to eat it. At best, it will be delicious bready loaf and everyone gets to eat it.

Celia from Fig Jam and Lime Cordial had given me the heads up on a place that sold bulk bakers flour. So with 12.5 kilos of strong bakers flour sitting on my kitchen bench, it was time to get crackin’.

Honey Ricotta Bread

1 cup polenta

2 1/2 cups strong bakers flour

2 tps dried yeast

2 tps salt

250g ricotta

4 tbs honey

400ml water

With a dough hook, mixed everything up in the mixmaster. Once thoroughly mixed through, I left it for 10 minutes. A gentle knead on a floured surface then put in slightly oiled bowl, covered with cling wrap for 1/2 an hour, (or until doubled in size.). Another gentle knead, flattening the dough to an inch thick, folding over into 1/3, then folding again from the other side. Back into the bowl and then repeating the process in another half an hours time. Form into the shape that you want to cook in and let the dough rise for another 20-30 minutes or until risen by about a 1/3. Cook at 240 C until golden and sound hollow when knocked.

(Time varies depending on the shape you have cooked it in, ie. Bread rolls vs loaf)

Outcome? It was delicious! Thats when Monkey Boy said “Mama, this tastes better than cupcakes!” Now, if that isn’t a tick of approval I don’t what is.

Frugal Friday

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Once more Friday rolls around and there is not much left in the fridge. Not quite so little as to go shopping but not quite so much as to have many options. What to do with some organic pumpkin, carrots, and some flaccid celery and still get the monkeys to eat it? Carrying on from the Indian theme from last Friday, I think it was going to have to be dhal. Add a little red lentils, vegetable stock, some garlic, a fistful of spices and I had myself a tasty, healthy, budget friendly, monkey friendly dinner. Add a little natural yoghurt on top, and some fresh naan bread and dinner was done for ‘Frugal Friday’.

Naan bread I had tried to make a number of years ago, with the end result being little hard round bricks. That was the last time I had attempted them. Naan bread being a firm favourite here and with an excellent little Indian take away around the corner to happily oblige us when the taste for naan over comes us.

But not today. I wanted to give it another crack…..

160ml warm water

1tsp dry yeast

1 tsp sugar

2 cups plain flour

1 tsp salt

2 tbls oil/or ghee

2 tbls yoghurt

Mix the water, yeast and sugar together in a bowl until dissolved. Leave in a warm place for 10 minutes. Add flour salt, half the oil and yoghurt. Mix to a soft dough then knead on floured  surface until smooth and elastic.

Place dough in a bowl with wet tea towel over the top in warm place for approx 1 1/2 hours or until doubled in size.

Knead dough on floured surface for 5 minutes, then divide into 6 portions. Roll out into rounds. I pulled one side to get the traditional ‘teardrop’ shape that you would get if cooking in a tandoor oven.

Cook in a very lightly oiled frying pan and pop the frying pan under the grill to get those distinctive brown puffy circles to finish it off. Brush naan with remaining ghee or butter.