I had kept my time in the kitchen baking pretty much in check, limited to occasional pancakes or waffles on the weekend — with my recent peanut butter bread being an outlier.
Until now.
We’ve officially reached the point in our time stuck inside that I’ve caved and broken into my limited stash of yeast and my what feels like a lifetime supply of flour from Costco to bake my way through my feelings. I held off as long as I could since I knew once I started, I might not be able to start!
I haven’t truly made bread I think ever, so I was curious to try out this recipe for no-knead focaccia from Bon Appétit. The recipe promised it was super easy, but I was skeptical. Surely I’d find something to mess up. And oh, I of course did. But it was so forgiving that it didn’t even matter. I also learned that anything with yeast is a bit like a mini-science experiment for a small child. Showing Q the way the bread continued to progress throughout the day was fascinating for him and made him felt like he helping to make the bread, too.
The most significant investment in this project? Easily time. I started work on this around 10am and we didn’t have the bread until 6:30pm. There was a shortcut in there that I didn’t take, so there is an option to shave a bit off of that if you need to — but regardless, as always, baking bread is a bit of a labor of love.
I also made Christina Tosi’s citrus loaf, part of her quarantine kitchen series she’s been doing daily via Instagram stories. While I can’t usually catch it live, it’s been a fun source of eye candy and ideas for that “next great thing” to tackle in the kitchen.
This bread is definitely on the sweeter side. After baking, you add a citrus soak before you add a citrus glaze. It packs some serious flavor. I thought it was amazing. Main thing you need and may not have sitting around at home is a bunch of lemons.
And over the weekend, I decided it was time for some banana bread. And not just any banana bread. This fabulous recipe from Allison Robicelli. It promised to be more of a cake than banana bread and I was sold. Only things you might not have readily accessible in your kitchen are lots of bananas (8 … I mean you might have 2, but probably not 8!) and light brown sugar.
This recipe is like no other banana bread I’ve ever made. Instead of a loaf pan you use a a 9×13” one. You also line the bottom with brown sugar and chunks of banana and you invert the bread once it cools. It’s basically a pineapple upside down cake but with bananas — sort of? It’s moist and tasty and we are fans. The photo above is how it came out of the oven and below is how it looks post-flip.
I’ll have more to share as I spend more QT in the kitchen so I’ll be back to share more recipes. What are you baking right now?
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