Yay! This looks like great advice. :)

Always have to remember that yeast is a living thing...and needs to be handled like a baby...warm water, something to eat and gentle handling.

I do the first kneading instead of mixing, and I add a little more sweetener...but those are pretty minor differences.

You're right....if the water is too hot, the yeast is killed and then you have flatbread. :|

Happy to share! :)
This one isn't health food, but we like it...and it's a great way to use over-ripe bananas. When they are getting too spotty on the counter I toss them (in the peels) into the freezer, where they turn hard and black. When I want to bake a cake, I pull them out and let them thaw a bit on the counter.

Rooster's Favorite Banana Cake

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together:

• 2-1/2 cups flour (the white whole wheat works here too)
• 1-2/3 cups sugar (did I mention this wasn't healthy stuff?)
• 1-1/4 tsp. baking powder
• 1-1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt

Once the dry ingredients are well blended, you'll add:

• 2/3 cup soft shortening (I like butter flavored Crisco....bad, I know)
• 2/3 cup buttermilk (or squeeze a little lemon juice or put a spoonful of vinegar in the fresh milk and let it sit for a minute)
• 3 chopped or mashed over-ripe bananas (without the peels of course *giggle*)
• 2 large eggs

I put this into a bundt pan (cuz we like our cake by the bump, not the slice), but you can use a 9 x 13 rectangle or 2 regular cake pans if you prefer. Whatever you use, either grease and flour your pans, or spray Pam like crazy. Banana cake can grab on.

The bundt pan takes 50 - 55 mins., layers might be done in a half hour...rectangle maybe 40 - 45 minutes.

This is one you'll have to test with a cake tester or broom straw to make sure it comes out clean. The moisture content of bananas (and the size) vary widely....so times aren't exact.

I don't frost it...we like it just the way it comes out of the oven....but I've always thought a caramel frosting would be yummy.

Enjoy! :)

Hey, if y'all need a taste tester, do NOT hesitate to contact me. k? k.

Excellent thread, yes!

As for the diabetics in the house, this will be a great topic to explore. I am not diabetic, but it runs in the family. And one of my ex's whom I just talked to yesterday is a diabetic that could really use my wisdom I have gleaned over the years.

I am of the opinion that we are what we ear in many senses. And from my scientific study of the subject and observation of the many patients I have had in dire straights in the ICU's I have worked on, the artificial sweetners are the very bane of a diabetics life. They literally alter many neural pathways, and your taste buds are simply not designed for that level of sweetness. Many are like 900% more sweet than sugar.

I think you can bake and cook using ingredients as close to the way G.d made them. Natural sweetners your body is designed to handle.

I think exploring what works for you is always a good idea. I know many today enjoy using agave. Some love honey.

And for those that do the artificial sweetner dance, stevia seems to work great. I have a very sensitive palette and it simply tastes bad to me. And I trust my taste buds, always. They know the truth.

Keep it real, imnsho.


Did you ever explore the history of who invented the artificial sweetners, how they came into being? They did not start off as sweetners, but as chemical warfare during WWII. Little know fact. Imo, they are killers still, slowly but surely. Diabetes keeps my profession in business, I have always said. Well that and testosterone can be linked to pretty much almost every admission into a hospital if you really want to think about it.

But I am off topic a bit, sorry for my circuitous logic here. I think baking for diabetics will be a great topic to explore!!! Personally I like to use fruit as a sweetner and then advocate for a less is more approach in the consuming of it to keep those blood sugar numbers within normal limits.


Yikes, gots to run, pool is calling my name!


Will catch up with y'all laters. Have a happy, nutritionally delicious and satisfying day.


d'who is getting moving to partake of that morning sunrise

As I sit here waiting for the pool to open and enjoying the sun that is about to come over the horizon, I wanted to let you know that being from the desert does not preclude baking. I am a native New Mexican and learned to bake from scratch. In the heat of the day, I did not turn on the oven. But many a time my butch would wake to the scent of bread baking. I would start the dough before I went to bed. Animals would always need a tending to, so I had many a chance to check on its rising, give it the touch it needed.

I was cooking and baking on and in a wood stove that was over 100 years old and I loved it. Stoking a fire, getting the temperatures just right, it was an art I learned over the years on my mountain there. I did not cook much in the heat of the day, nor bake.

And many of my Native New Mexicans do their bread baking outdoors. And I even experimented as I always liked to do, trying to bake in a bbq, a smoker, and even a boy scout homemade solar oven experiment that went quite well. I love scientific method. And yes, many times I failed, but when it came out right, it was amazing and such fun for me. My butch at the time LOVED it. Was great at helping me collect the wood, split it and stack it for me. A win win situation. Twice, or thrice warm wood. First gathering the wood, cutting it, then the actual burning of it. Love it.

but yet again I digress...

Hope you get the bread making machine and enjoy it, but for me they simply don't do it for me. I gave the darned machine a good try, my ex enjoyed some of what it produced. But there were some glorious failures too, which taught me a lot along the way. And I did not like the bloody noise, too~! I don't see how the yeasties could like it, they are pretty sensitive creatures, imo.

I am a tactile baker, chef. I have to touch it, see it, smell it... get to know it personally. Either way, enjoy it, however you want to try it. Much of cooking is an art as much as it is a science, imnsho.


oh, another sort of bread we made a lot on the Steppe, the High Desert plateaus.... flat breads, ie homemade tortillas. YummmmO!

Invest in some good cast iron and try some of those easy peasy, delicious carbs. Now I want a breakfast burrito in a homemade flour tortilla, with hatch green chile. Oh well... not today, but it is a lovely thought/memory.

~so much of memory is of the flavours of which we partook~

Sun is up!!!

Glorious

I love to bake. Though the past few months I haven't had much time to indulge in the kitchen. The last recipe I tested was a play off of a caramel macchiatto from Starbucks. Chocolate cake with coffee glaze and caramel frosting. The test run got rave reviews from my coworkers. If I get time to bake in the next few weeks it's top of my list to make again and aim for perfection ;)

The chocolate cake wasn't "chocolaty" enough so the next go 'round will be devils food with dutch processed cocoa. The coffee glaze was smashingly yummy, not changing a thing there. And the caramel frosting was entirely too sickly sweet -- made with melted Brachs caramel candies. This time I'm going to ignore my lazy streak and make a real caramel sauce for the buttercream frosting.