52 Weeks of Baking weeks 3&4 (or 1 and 2 for me)

I, Vicki, have joined swap-bot and in there there is a challenge for 52 weeks of baking. As many of my loyal readers may know I have a love for making cookies. Well, I like other baking as well and I will try to make other things.

I Have decided that once my partners rate me (I send to at this point 2) I will post here what I got well the rating from the last two weeks are in.

The challenge is this (I am quoting from the swap coordinator RedRubyOnFire, who has a blog on blogger too)

“If you like me, find baking therapeutic, calming and satisfying join me on this challenge - 52 Weeks of Baking!
What we will swap - 1) A little paragraph about the day of the baking and the experience gained that day. 2) A photo of the result 3) A link to the recipe if found on line or state where it is found, and a review of it - eg: if it's good or not, or if you made some modification
All the above is only for the baking you did within the swap dates (20th - 27th April) and not those you have done previously. The challenge is to bake once a week.
What you can bake - anything!”


So this is what I have done:

April 13-20th : Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows

I chose as my first is a recipe from "Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar", Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows.

I am not vegan but I was introduced to some of these cookies at christmas time. I received a box of cookies at christmas from a good friend who is vegan and they were great I wrote about it here.  I am challenging myself to make as many of the recipes out of it. I chose one of my favorites from the box I received.
As my readers will note this is not the first time I have cooked from this book. And this time I was really surprised at the ease of this recipe. The last recipe I made from this book involved reducing some pureed pumpkin and this was “mix and roll”.  See Here is me making them.

What I may do differently next time is reduce the amount of oil a little as it is quite oily as you can see from the sheen of my hands. I was surprised that they flattened out so much. My taste testers all liked them. I found them very sweet.  I don't know how to change that other than possibly buying unsweetened peanut butter or making my own. I suspect it would only slightly reduce the sweetness.

April 20th-27th Banana Bread

I was exited Last Thursday when I got out of bed. I was going to make Banana bread. I have a nice typed out recipe card that I got years ago from the assistant to my dentist and the mother of a kid I worked with. The bananas were at the point where the kids generally wont eat them and they are perfect for bread.

I hopped down stairs and began to get things together, but I could not find the recipe card. I hadn’t used it since February but it was not in any of the usual places. I saw 2 bananas were riper than I thought so I felt I was at a do or die point. So I went to the cook book shelves (yes I have a lot of cook books) Looked at many but in the end I went for my Better homes and garden cook book. I found a recipe and after reading it through decided I would adapt it. I began to get the ingredients together and grabbed the 2 very ripe bananas only to discover that they were the only 2 Bananas in the house the children had eaten the rest for breakfast.

As I had measured the flour and cracked the eggs I decided to adapt the recipe further by filling out the 1 ½ cups of bananas with some apple sauce - unsweetened simple apple sauce.

Finally I got all the ingredients mixed.

At this point I realized the oven was not on. I had set the timer for 3 hours and 50 minutes instead, ah these modern ovens with all the buttons.

So on went the oven. About 5 minutes later I started to small burning. Now this was a problem earlier in the week when my husband was making a quiche. He said the exposed crust was burning but now I know that something was spilled in the back of the oven. (I'll spare you a picture of that)

Finally about an hour after I had started to make the quick bread I put it in the greased pan and put it in the oven.

I then started this took a shower and started to clean up my mess.

At 45 minutes in I put foil on the top to prevent over browning as the book suggested. And then back in for another 15 minutes. That is all it took! The skewer came out clean. (I always use a wooden 6 inch kebab skewer instead of a tooth pick)



Here is my recipe adapted from Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook limited Edition (2005). Page 119. (the Pink for Breast cancer edition)

Dry:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour (book calls for 2 cups all purpose flour but I like to use as much Whole wheat flour as I can)
1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon cinnemon
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ nutmeg (OK I never measure nutmeg any more I have whole nut megs that I grate using a micro-plane grater and just guess)

Wet:
1 ½ cups mashed bannanas and apple sauce
½ cup canola oil
1 cup sugar
2 eggs

Last:
¾ cup chocolate chips (not in the book but I always put chocolate in my banana bread)

(Book calls for nuts and a streusel type topping neither of which appeal to me. So I didn’t do them)

Preaheat oven to 350
Grease or oil a large Bread pan (book says 9X5X3) I am not sure the size of mine
Combine Dry ingreadents in a bowl and set aside
Combine wet in mixer bowl ans beat until well combinded
Add half of dry and stir until wet add remained and stir until mixed.
Stir in chocolate chips

Put in greased pan and in to oven Bake for 45-60 minutes until wooden tooth pick comes out clean and is golden brown If necessary cover with foil for the last fifteen minutes to prevent over browning (I did this it was amazing I have had trouble with over browned tops and underdone insides It didn’t happen this time!).

So you ask how it tastes? I liked it there was a nuttiness from the whole wheat flour and it was not too sweet even with the full cup of sugar, fruit, and chocolate chips.  Griffin said it was so-so, I think he could tell the recipe change. Bill liked it and ate about half the loaf. Holly never the fan of baked good skipped out on it.

Now to plan for next weeks baking.