Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Banana Bread

Another delicious recipe from How Sweet Eats - Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Bread.

My favorite breakfast is whole wheat toast, peanut butter, chopped bananas and dark chocolate shavings. Yum. This bread (toast it with some peanut butter) might be my new favorite breakfast food.

Yum.

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Banana Bread
(recipe adapted from How Sweet Eats. ingredients below reflect the changes I had to make due to not having all ingredients required on hand)
makes one loaf

~ingredients~

1/2 cup butter, at room temperature (I was out of butter so I used canola oil, though I would suggest not substituting unless necessary)
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large ripe bananas, mashed
2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup milk
1 cup chocolate chips
~instructions~

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in a bowl and set aside.
2. Cream butter and peanut butter in the bowl of an electric mixer. Add sugars and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. 
3. Add egg and vanilla, mixing until combined. Add bananas and mix. 
4. Add dry ingredients slowly, mixing until just combined. 
5. Stir in milk, adding more one tablespoon at a time if batter is not wet enough. 
6. Fold in chocolate chips.
7. Spray a loaf pan with non-stick spray and pour in batter. Bake for 50 minutes, or until knife inserted comes out clean. (it took over an hour for my bread)

basic boule bread

my aunt bought me this book for Christmas last year and i finally had the courage to try a recipe this week.

if you don't know anything about it - the basic idea is:

1. make wet dough recipe. let rise for 2 hours.
2. after first rise, you can put it in the fridge for up to 14 days or bake some bread!
3. when you're ready, pull off about a grapefruit size piece, pull it into the appropriate shape (based on what you're making), let rest for 40 min, then bake for 30.
4. the point being - you can have fresh baked bread every day, without needing the 2+ hours of rising time that is usually required.

the idea of a "wet" bread dough kind of scared me. what if i did it wrong? i'd have crappy bread for weeks, not just a few days.

so, i tried it. the process was way easy. i did the basic recipe which called for 6 1/2 cups of flour. only problem was when i reached 4 cups...i couldn't remember if i had just DONE 4 cups...or if i was on 4 cups. so, i ended up adding more flour in the end (bout 3/4 cup), and i think i was on the LESS flour side as my dough was SO WET i could barely pick it up.

anyway, i ended up making two loaves b/c my container where i mixed the dough was OVERFLOWING after less than 2 hours.

my bread came out so crispy crunchy on the outside and warm and soft on the inside. probably the best bread i've ever baked. it was more like baguette-size, but it still was delicious!

also - best thing for bread is having cornmeal, a pizza peel and a pizza/baking stone. adding water (in a broiler pan, or in my case - a shallow baking dish) as well will all combine to give you crusty bread and soft insides. yum!

more on the book here: artisanbreadinfive.com

homemade burger buns

the other day i made another batch of homemade burger buns in hopes to get something as awesome as these brioche buns, but without all the calories. from what i could tell, the brioche buns were almost 250 calories per serving.

i didn't have any milk in the house so i was limited on what i could make, but i found this recipe from www.kingarthurflour.com. i'm not quite sure of the calories, but when i researched after making them, i found they they probably are around the same amount of calories as the brioche buns...so, fail on that part.

these buns were pretty tasty - i ended up eating one with just butter because i was dying to try them, and they are yummy! they were easy to make (didn't require including water in a pan in the oven for steaming). they were a little sweet, but we ate them with Rachael Ray Turkey Sloppy Joes (another post) which were perfect together!

one thing i love about making buns is that they seem to freeze pretty great, so we can eat burgers or sloppy joes without serious planning by pulling them out of the freezer (they defrost within an hour - less if you toast them).

 

baking bread: first attempt

i've been trying to think of better ways to spend the several hours i have at home before josh gets done with work and we eat dinner. usually i sit on my lazy butt watching TV and browsing the web. one idea i had was to make my own bread! josh loves fresh Italian and white bread, but it's so hard to keep it fresh and yummy. i usually prefer wheat bread, but i end up freezing it b/c we don't eat it that often, and i've been really disappointed with brands i've been buying at the store lately. i know making bread is time consuming, but i thought it was a productive way to spend an evening!

last night i attempted a simple white bread recipe that was in the booklet that came with our KitchenAid mixer. holy. seriousness. that is the best machine ever. i love that it works for bread dough! it has this awesome "bread hook" (metal) that kneads the dough for you, so no kneading by hand! the recipe called for two loaves, but i only have one loaf pan so i split the recipe in half.

pretty much the recipe goes like this:

1. mix milk, butter, sugar and salt in saucepan. heat to dissolve, then cool to lukewarm.
2. dissolve yeast in warm water in "warmed" mixing bowl
3. add the milk mixture to the yeast, combine
4. add flour, in increments. when all flour is added, knead on speed 2
5. form into ball and put in greased bowl, turning once to coat
6. cover, let rise in warm area about 1 hour (i put my oven on for a little then turned it off and put in the bread dough)
7. roll out dough to rectangle, roll up and plop in your greased loaf pan
8. let rise till doubled in size, bake and enjoy!

this bread was great toasted w/ peanut butter for breakfast. josh enjoyed it last night as the base for a turkey sandwich!


all in all, i enjoyed the process and was very proud of my results. i will definitely continue to make our own bread!! i actually made stromboli dough while i was making the bread dough. pictures/post on that later!

if you are interested in more details on the recipe, let me know!