2020: THE YEAR OF BANANA BREAD. Unofficial … or was it Official? … Food of the Pandemic. Rivaled only perhaps by our sourdough starters. Who knew there would be so much banana bread in this year? I think that I might have ten new recipes this year alone. And I couldn’t help but make one more loaf just to shut this year down. May there be lots of other recipe in our futures and thanks for being there this year. Tomorrow will be just another new day and we can make and bake and share something new and different.
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Breads
So, I am headed out on my travels today — I know, it seems so strange to say that these days, am I right? — and I have this extra special tendency to take a long a sandwich, just in case there is no food. I also bring along apples, but that isn’t nearly as fun to write about. At any rate, I made the rolls this morning and will be makeing a couple of sandwiches shortly. There is nothing like freshly baked bread!
Here is another one of my seemingly weekly bread experiments. This was actually a “fail” in terms of what I was trying to do: I was trying to make a long “snake” with the dough, wanted to swirl it back upon itself, and then curl it into a ball, to create a unique form with the actual bread, but that didn’t work and it just ended up proofing together again on the final rise. That is ok though, because it turned out really delicious nevertheless. This Rosemary and Sea Salt Rustic Loaf is going to make great dipping bread into olive oil. I also foresee a Grilled Cheese Sandwich in my future.
About ten days ago or so, I baked these Low-Knead Cast-Iron Crisp-Top Dinner Rolls. They were absolutely fantastic, but I was curious to see if a whole wheat or seeded (or both) variety would work as well and turns out, it did. I made them in the same cast iron braiser that I made the others, and the tops came up nice and crispy, the flavor is also great. Overall, definitely a repeatable recipe, though in all honestly, I did like the White Flour ones better. These are a recipe to add to the rotation for sure!
Sometimes the things that should be so easy end up being so very very hard, comparatively. Like making crusty baguette-style dinner rolls (or sandwich rolls, or whatnot). I’ve experimented with various versions and finally — FINALLY — These might just be perfect. It’s another one of those very-little-knead (“no knead”) bake in cast-iron recipes. It takes a while — there is an overnight rise in the fridge involved — but these are really out of this world good. Definitely recommended. I am going to try whole wheat / multigrain versions of these as well, so stay tuned.