Baking Day: Banana and Apple Bread

This week's bake - Banana and Apple Bread - is a recipe from the original Cranks Recipe Book. Cranks was the first ever vegetarian restaurant in the UK in the 1960s. I got this book in the early days of my vegetarian period (around 1990 I think) and it has served us very well since - even though I'm back to eating meat now. You can see from the picture that it is very well used - half the pages are falling out these days. There are some quite hard going meal ideas in here, but it has some excellent, very wholesome recipes, especially for baked treats. Favourites in this house include carrot cake, ginger and orange cake, sticky prune cake and bara brith.

Whilst I had the oven on for the bread yesterday I also made a loaf of bara brith - twin 1 has now demolished a fair proportion of it (it's his absolute favourite), but this is how it looked before he got his hands on it. Bara brith is a tradional Welsh recipe (bara brith means speckled bread) and appears to have 2 different styles - yeasted and unyeasted. I expect the yeasted style is more authentic, but the recipe in the Cranks book is an unyeasted one. Sultanas, raisins and currants are soaked overnight in tea (this is the traditional method) which plumps them up so they are lovely and juicy in the finished cake. The next day you add flour, an egg and some spice, and a little sugar (I don't usually bother) and bake for 40 minutes or so. The huge advantage of this recipe is that it contains no fat and you can make it with no added sugar - there aren't too many delicious cakes that you can say that for!

This week's bread is another no-added-sugar recipe. We make this very regularly - it's a good way of using up left over apple puree (a favourite pudding with the boys) and over-brown bananas.

Banana and Apple Bread

450g plain wholemeal flour (for a slightly less dense bread you can use half plain white flour)

7g dried yeast

150 ml lukewarm water

3 tbsp of apple puree (1 apple, chopped small and cooked in small pan with 1 tbsp of water until mushy)

25g sugar (optional - you can omit this entirely or use a tbsp of honey)

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

4-5 gratings of whole nutmeg (or 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg)

50g sultanas

1 large (or 2 small) mashed bananas

grated rind of 1/2 lemon

In a large mixing bowl, mix together 100g of the flour, the yeast and the warm water and leave in a warm place until it rises and bubbles (see left). If you are using a food mixer, put the flour and water straight into your food mixer bowl as I've done here. While the ferment is rising, line a 1lb loaf tin (21cm long by 11cm across by 6cm deep) with baking parchment. You can use a bigger tin but your loaf will be flatter when it comes out of the oven.

Now add the rest of the ingredients (including, obviously, the rest of the flour!) and stir thoroughly, either with a wooden spoon, your hands, or the beater attachment on your mixer. You do not have to knead the dough - just ensure that the ingredients are thoroughly combined. If you are using a mixer then leave the sultanas out until near the end of the mixing process, so they don't get mushed up by the beater.

The dough should be quite wet and sticky - if it feels a little dry and is not sticking to your fingers, add more apple if you have some, or a tablespoon or 2 of water.

Transfer the dough to your prepared tin and smooth the top of the dough with wet hands. Put the tin inside a large polythene bag (a supermarket Bag for Life is, as usual, ideal for this) and leave in a warm place until the dough is teetering on the brink of rising over the edge of the tin (see right). Now's the time to put the oven on to pre-heat to 190C/Gas Mark 5. When your bread has risen, transfer the tin carefully to the oven and bake for about 35 minutes until the top of the loaf is golden brown and the bottom sounds hollow when you give it a tap. Remove from the tin straight away and leave to cool on a wire rack. This is delicious, still warm from the oven, with butter and honey. We also like to have it toasted for breakfast, with honey, marmalade or fruit butter. Twin 2 likes it with chocolate spread, but the rest of us are not convinced by that one!

Words of Wisdom

The way to approach baking is with peace in your heart and a jug of cider by your side.

Keith Floyd

Focaccia

An Italian flat bread, rich with olive oil and with a nice firm texture. The recipe below is based on the one given in Ursula Ferrigno's brilliant The New Family Bread Book, which goes into really helpful detail and has stacks of great recipes. It's her quantities we followed for the 'biga', which is a yeast starter added to improve the texture of the bread.

It's one to be done over two days:

The evening before

'biga'
100g strong white bread flour
1/4 tsp dried yeast (or 1/2 tsp fresh) dissolved in 130g warm water

Mix thoroughly - it resembles a stiff pancake batter. Cover & leave for 12-24 hours at room temperature.

Main recipe

250g strong white bread flour
2 tsp salt
1 tsp dried yeast (or 2 tsp fresh)
160g warm water
olive oil
4 tbsp biga

sea salt crystals

extra virgin olive oil

Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl.

Dissolve the yeast in 2 tbsp of the water.

Add the dissolved yeast, olive oil & biga to the flour & then add the water, a little at a time, bringing it together into a soft, but not too sticky, dough.

Knead for 10 minutes on a floured surface - at the end of this, the dough should stretch nicely when pulled, and not break. Oil a bowl, put the dough in it, brush a little more oil on the top, then cover with a damp tea towel or a polythene bag and leave it somewhere warm to rise for 1.5 hours.

Knock back and knead for 5 minutes, then cover again and leave somewhere warm to rise for 10 mins.

Roll out into a square or circle, about 1cm thick & transfer to a baking sheet. Tuck a polythene bag around the sheet like a tent over it and leave for 30 minutes to prove.

Pre-heat the oven to 200c (gas 6). Make little dimples in the top with wet fingertips, sprinkle with salt crystals and some fresh rosemary. Leave it to rest for another 10 minutes.

Bake for 30 minutes or until it's a nice golden colour.

Leave to cool and then sprinkle and spread the top with good extra virgin olive oil.

*****

What we like to do with focaccia is something we read Nigel Slater recommending once - which is to slice it in half across-ways, fill it with yummy stuff, wrap it in foil and return to the oven until everything's piping hot.

We did two fillings. The first was spread on both sides thinly with tomato puree then layered with sliced mozzarella, chopped black olives and parma ham. The second had tomato puree mixed with a touch of chilli powder spread on each side and was then filled with mozzarella and anchovy fillets.

Bath Buns

When we lived down in Cambridge we were frequent customers of the brilliant market stall called the Earth's Crust. They had excellent sourdough and rye breads, brilliant pastries (their chocolate and almond brioche made Sunday morning very special for me) and yummy cakes.

Our sons were particularly fond of their Bath Buns, which is understandable because they are completely delicious, and toddler-satisfyingly huge.

So now we can't indulge at Earth's Crust any more, I thought it was about time that we had a go at making our own Bath Buns. This recipe is based on the one in Jane Grigson's English Food, which she got from Cobb & Co Ltd (I presume a bakers) of Bath. I've added sultanas, because my sons believe that all buns have some kind of dried fruit. I've also omitted some of the sugar in the bun in an attempt to cut down on the calories. These buns are incredibly rich, but I am unapologetic about that because everyone needs a treat now and again. They're definitely best eaten on the day they were made, preferably warm from the oven.

Bath Buns (makes 12 buns)

Ferment

10g dried yeast

10g granulated sugar

70g lukewarm water

4 eggs

75g strong white flour

Dough

450g strong white flour

180g softened butter cut into cubes

45g sugar

a pinch of mixed spice

a pinch of salt

150g sultanas

Bun wash and topping

30g sugar

3 tablespoons water

coarsely crushed sugar lumps, sugar crystals or granulated sugar

The buns start with a ferment which gives them a better flavour and results in a lighter dough - which is fairly essential for this very rich recipe. Put the yeast, sugar and water into a medium mixing bowl and whisk together to dissolve the yeast. Leave in a warm place for about 15 minutes until it has bubbled up. It will look something like this:

Beat the eggs in a separate bowl and then stir into your yeast mixture. Sift in the 75g of strong white flour and stir gently until combined. Cover the bowl with a damp tea-towel or cling film and leave in a warm place until the mixture has frothed up (this takes an hour or more depending on the temperature). You will have something that looks like this:

Put all the dough ingredients, except the sultanas, into a large bowl, gently add the ferment and mix it in using your hands or a mixer with a dough hook. It will seem impossibly sticky at first but patience is required. If you are doing this part by hand, as soon as you are able, turn the mixture onto a very lightly floured work surface and knead for about 10 minutes. If it does not show signs of losing it's stickiness at this stage add a little more flour (start with 1 tbsp). but don't rush into adding flour in the early stages. If you are using a mixer then mix for about 5 minutes. The finished dough should be smooth, a little sticky and will spring back when poked.

Flatten the dough to about 3cm thickness and press the sultanas into it, fold the dough over then press down again. Keep folding, pressing and kneading until the sultanas are fairly even distributed. You should end up with something like this:

Put the dough back in the bowl, cover the bowl with a damp tea-towel or clingfilm and leave in a warm place until it has doubled in size. Again, depending on the temperature this will take at least an hour, probably more like 2 hours for such a rich dough. Your risen dough will look like this:

Line a baking tray with baking parchment, or flour the tray thoroughly. Take your dough, and handling it gently, divide it into 12 pieces, each around the size of a small apple. Try and ensure that you don't have too many sultanas poking out through the dough because they will burn in the oven. Put the buns on the tray with a bit of space around them to allow them to rise:

Put the whole tray into a large carrier bag (I find 'Bags for Life' invaluable for this), making sure that the bag is not touching the buns, and put in a warm place until the buns have puffed up and are 'batching' (i.e. pushing up against each other). This will take anywhere between 30 minutes and an hour. Now is the time to preheat the oven to Gas 7/220C.

When the buns are ready to go in the oven, remove very carefully from the bag and bake them for around 15-20 minutes. Keep a close eye on them - the rich dough can burn quite quickly.

Whilst they are baking make the bun wash. Put the 30g of sugar and the water into a small saucepan and heat gently until the sugar is dissolved, then boil until the mixture is syrupy. Again, watch carefully, it is easy to get toffee at this stage! If using, crush the sugar lumps coarsely in a pestle and mortar.

When the buns are baked, remove from the oven and transfer to a cooling tray lined with a fresh sheet of baking parchment or greaseproof paper. Brush the tops of the buns with the syrupy bun wash and sprinkle with the sugar.

Leave to cool a bit and then enjoy - like this!

Twelfth Night Spiced Bun

Cakes were always a big thing for Epiphany, Twelfth Day, Twelfth Night, or whatever.

It might be the fifth of Jan, the sixth of Jan, or really, whenever you fancy. Confused by when to count the first day of Christmas, by whether to celebrate on the eve or the evening of Epiphany, or even by some diehards celebrating Old Christmas Day on the 6th of Jan after calendar reforms, it's best just to throw up your hands and seek refuge in a cake.

Cakes are really the traditional English Twelfth Night food. In some households the person who got a bean in their portion would become the president or captain of the evening's festivities; earlier in wealthy households this took the form of a carnivalesque inversion of authority, a 'Lord of Misrule' who ensured everyone got drunk. Much later, there are stories of mischievous urchins nailing the clothes of those peering in bakers' windows to the wall, as the queuing public stood in static admiration of the cakes on sale.

Whatever the history, here is our first baking recipe for 2010. It's for a kind of bun loaf for which you'll need a tin of around 16cm diameter - we used a circular one with a removable base which worked just fine. The basis for the recipe is a ferment and dough given by Andrew Whitley in Bread Matters, as we mentioned here. The book's well worth looking out, as we've said numerous times before..

Night Before:

180g mixed dried fruit: raisins, currants, sultanas - the usual suspects
45g brown sugar
spices: cinnamon stick, cloves, allspice berries, grated lemon zest, whatever you fancy

Soak overnight in 250ml of tea. Strong black tea is fine - we used strong red bush tea.

On the day:

The baking takes about three and a half hours from start to finish.

First make the ferment in a small bowl:

5g sugar
5g fresh yeast, or 3g dried yeast
60g milk, warmed slightly
50g wholemeal flour

Mix together well and leave somewhere warm for 1 hour.

The dough:

30g sugar
60g strong white bread flour
50g wholemeal flour
1 egg
120g of the ferment
50g butter

1. Mix sugar and flour together.

2. Add egg and the ferment. Work into a dough and knead for about 1 minute. You can do this in a mixer with a dough hook.

3. Add butter and knead for 10 mins (by hand) or for 5 mins if you're using a mixer. You should end up with a soft and sticky dough. Wet your hands a bit if you're kneading by hand!

4. Cover with a polythene bag and leave somewhere warm for 1 hour.

5. Drain the fruit from the soaking liquid and pick out the whole spices. Fold the soaked fruit into the dough pretty thoroughly.

6. Line your tin with baking parchment so that it comes over the sides a bit. Drop in the dough (don't be too rough with it), cover it with a polythene bag, and leave somewhere warm to prove for 30 mins.

7. Pre-heat the oven to 180c

8. Brush the top with a bit of beaten egg and bake for 35-45 minutes - check with a skewer to make sure there aren't any squidgy uncooked bits in the middle.

9. Remove it from the tin and the paper and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Here's what it looks when it comes out of the oven:

And it tastes very nice indeed.

Baking

Happy new year! I think you can just about get away with saying that still in the first week of 2010. The plan for this year is to do more baking and blog a few tested recipes here. The aim is for one each week - we'll see how we do with that!

With this in mind, I'm attempting a festive Twelfth Night bread-cum-cake tomorrow, using an excellent dough recipe from Andrew Whitley's Bread Matters (which we wrote about earlier a couple of times) as its base. The book's a great buy for anyone looking to get into all kinds of baking, by the way, highly recommended. Here's it's Amazon link.

Our cake-y bread-y thing is going to be a fruity and spicy number, to suit the season, so the first step for baking it tomorrow is going to be soaking the fruit, so that's about:

180g of mixed dried fruit

45g of brown sugar in a bowl

- soak overnight in about 240ml of tea with a cinnamon stick, 5 cloves & 4 allspice berries. Or any whole spices you fancy.

I think I'll use red bush tea, as that's been successful for us when making bara brith in the past.

The full recipe will appear tomorrow, once I've wrestled the thing into something edible for Twelfth Night, which depending on your preference is either the 5th or the 6th of January. Of course, you can always come up with your own excuse for baking and eating a lovely cake...