I'm not big into making resolutions. In fact, I've only set one, and that was to finish projects that I start (I had a lot of unfinished craft projects that year!) What I am good at is setting goals. So, my goal for this year is to start every day doing something positive for myself. You can't always stop the other stuff from happening to you, but I figure, if I have something positive in each day, I will have a positive year. I hope everyone also has a great year.
Wow, this has been an incredibly long week, but I finally have a day off. After spending the last 7 days, 9 1/2 hours per day, on my feet (my last stretch before having to take time off because of my car was 8 days), my plan is not to get out of bed. But of course, a girl has to eat, and what better to eat than baked goods.
As a baker, it has been especially frustrating that I haven't been able to bake for the last year and a half, but that's going to change. I'm starting off with something simple - a slow cooker banana bread.
It also helps that I was gifted with some bananas past their prime. Actually, I have tried this before. I was talking to the produce guy at our local supermarket, Roxy's, and was offered bananas that were past selling stage. I don't know if other local markets do this, but it never hurts to ask. It saves you money, and saves food waste, a win-win for everyone.
There's always something comforting about banana bread, and everyone does it just a little bit different. Some people like it sweeter (I'm one of those),others add walnuts, or chocolate chips,etc. The list goes on and on. There are also a lot of recipes for baking a banana bread in a slow cooker. These will also vary, usually in batter amount, because some of these recipes call for putting a smaller amount of batter in a small loaf pan and sitting that in the ceramic insert to bake. My recipe is the one I've used to make a regular size loaf, or in this case, a large round loaf. The only adjustment that I've made is for my baking it at high altitude.
Anyone who has ever baked knows that science is involved. Baking at high altitude (generally 3,000 feet above sea level) adds more rules to the mix. Unlike cooking, where you can always add 'a little of this' or 'a little of that', or 'salt and pepper to taste' to achieve the results you desire, that is definitely NOT the case with baking. Baking without following the scientific rules that govern the art, in order to achieve edible results, is like fooling around with that chemistry set you got as a gift when you were a child. In either case, not being aware of the chemical reactions, will give you an end result of some kind of green ooze, that you can't identify, and definitely don't want to eat.
Baking with yeast at high altitude is pretty much the same, because the yeast is doing the heavy lifting in the recipe. When baking a recipe that does not involve yeast, there are some things that you need to remember. I'm still learning these rules, and there is a great chart that can be found at https://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/high-altitude-baking.html or from the University of Colorado website, who basically wrote the book ("High Altitude Baking: 200 Delicious Recipes & Tips for Great Cookies, Cakes, Breads & More") on the subject. For my purposes, at over 6,000 feet, I added more butter and less sugar, and started testing the cake at 2 hours, and cake was done at 2 hours and 45 minutes. Yours may be different, but start checking around the 2 hour mark to be safe.
Banana Bread
Equipment
Bowl and hand mixer (or fork)
Slow Cooker
Cooking Bag
Ingredients
2-3 very ripe bananas, peeled
1/3 cup melted butter (I used 1/2 cup of butter for an altitude adjustment)
1 cup of sugar (can easily use 3/4 cup, or drop it down to 1/2 cup if you want it less sweet) (I used 3/4 cup for an altitude adjustment)
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
Optional: 1/2 cup chocolate chips or chopped walnuts
Pour the batter into your prepared slow cooker and bake on low for 2-4 hours, or until a toothpick or cake tester comes out clean.
Instructions
In a mixing bowl, mash the ripe
bananas with a fork until smooth. Stir the melted butter into the mashed
bananas.
Stir in beaten egg and vanilla extract. Mix in the sugar, baking soda and salt. Mix in the flour till just incorporated. The batter will be smooth and a little gooey.
Gently mix in any option ingredients.
If you've never had to do the toothpick test, this is the difference between a not done test, and clean toothpick test.
This pick still has some batter, while the next one is clean.
Carefully pull out the bag from the slow cooker and sit on a cooling rack. Allow the bread to cool for 10 minutes before pulling the bag away. Set the banana bread back on the rack and allow to cool completely.
The finished banana bread.
(You might notice my banana bread looks slightly burnt on one side. I left it in for 3 hours and should have pulled 15 minutes earlier. That can happen if you forget to check.)
Before I go, I have to share. It gets pretty cold here in the Montana mountains, and I have small hands, so I can't move my fingers in the waterproof gloves that skiers wear here. To compensate, I have been wearing two pairs of gloves, the little $1 stretchy ones (which don't need to stretch for me), and my Columbia fleece. Somehow, I lost the little gloves, and have taken to wearing tube socks over my gloves, like two sock puppets, to keep my hand from freezing. I'm on the road before 5am, and once it gets down to negative temps, (the other morning it was -17⁰ F), it's not really effective. I stopped into one of the shops at the resort, and paid more than I wanted to, but absolutely fell in love with these mittens. They're faux fur lined and feel awesome, and I love them! Oh, I already said that.
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