Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread~

Feel like some banana bread? Sometimes I have random cravings.. and hoping my bananas will quickly ripen! This is a delicious banana bread with a twist~ or should I say "swirl" hahha! Super quick and super easy :D

Cinnamon Swirl Banana bread

Recipe adapted from Sally's Baking Addiction

Ingredients

Banana bread

2 cups (250g) plain flour

3/4 tsp bicarb soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 cup (100g) brown sugar

60g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature

2 large eggs

1 1/2 cups ripe banana, mashed (about 3 bananas)

1/3g (80g) plain/vanilla yoghurt

1 tsp vanilla essence

Cinnamon Swirl

1/4 cup (50g) caster sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Simple Glaze

1/2 cup (60g) soft icing sugar

1 tbs heavy cream

Chopped walnuts (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 180oC. Grease and line a loaf pan.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, bicarb soda, salt and cinnamon.

3. In a separate large bowl beat the brown sugar and butter on medium speed until well blended. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in mashed banana, yoghurt and vanilla. Slowly add the dry ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon - do not overmix. Batter will be thick.

4. Spoon half batter into prepared loaf pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar swirl ingredients. Top with remaining batter. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes then remove and allow to cool completely on wire rack.

5. Make glaze by combining icing sugar and heavy cream. Add more icing sugar if needed to reach desired consistency. Drizzle over banana bread and top with some chopped walnuts (optional).

my not so cinnamon "swirl"

This banana bread is super moist! and the glaze gives it a nice sweetness :D

Marbled Green tea bread with Red bean filling

It's bread making time! I find Sundays are the best day for making bread as it needs a lot of time and usually takes a good half day. I don't own a bread maker so this loaf was made with 100% my hands! haha! Green tea and red bean are a match made in heaven! I don't normally like red bean but I think red bean paste is sweeter and has a nicer texture~ 

Marbled Green Tea bread with Red bean filling

Recipe adapted from My kitchen of love

Ingredients

300ml warm milk

60g caster sugar

1 packet of dry yeast (7g sachet)

500g plain flour + 50g for dusting

1 egg, lightly beaten

A pinch of salt

80g unsalted butter, at room temp

1 tbs green tea powder

1. Stir in sugar with warm milk then add yeast. Allow to rest for 10 minutes for the yeast to be activated.

2. Pour about 400g of flour into bowl and mix thoroughly. Add in egg and then salt and mix.

3. Dust working surface with flour then knead dough by hand for about 10 minutes until it starts to firm up. Add butter and continue kneading. The dough is quite sticky so you may need to continue to add more flour, just be patient with it. 
4. When the dough becomes smooth, less sticky and holds its shape, divide it by half. Add green tea powder to one half and knead until powder fully incorporated. Knead the other half for a few more minutes. Apparently if the dough is well kneaded, you can stretch it paper-thin without breaking....

the two balls of dough resting...

5. Place dough in lightly oiled bowl and cover with cling wrap. Leave in a warm place to rise for about one hour until doubled in size.
6. After one hour, take dough out and give several good punches to release the air. Knead for a few times and leave to rest for about 5 minutes.
7. Roll out dough into rectangular shapes of equal size. The thinner it is, the more swirl you can make.
8. Spread an even layer of red bean paste to the rolled out white dough, then place green tea dough on top and roll it up. Seal the end and carefully place into bread tin for a second proof. Leave in warm place for about 40 minutes until it doubles in size.

Red bean paste spread on white dough

Sandwich together!

9. Preheat the oven to 190oC and bake bread for about half and hour. For a shiny, golden crust, brush a thin layer of egg on top. Leave on rack to cool and slice.

Shiny loaf of bread!

I found that the top of the bread cooked very fast but when i sliced into it, the middle was not fully cooked. So don't be scared that the top is browning because you need to leave the bread in for the full half hour OR you could place a piece of foil on top to prevent it from browning so quickly. Also another tip is be patient with the bread! You actually have to knead it quite a bit... and although you may get sore hands/arms, it'll be worth it! Trust me!

the different layers~

You can see that the texture of my bread wasn't as light and fluffy but a bit dense and that is because I didn't take time to knead =p haha! But a lot of love was put into this bread! :)

Ooo Ooo Ahhh Ahh MONKEY BREAD!

When I first saw this recipe, the name caught me! Monkey Bread.... what a strange name? What is it? It's not shaped like a monkey.. do monkey's eat it? hehe.. so I wikied it and found out the reason why it is called monkey bread! Firstly because the bread looks like a monkey puzzle tree (who knows what that looks like =S) and secondly because of the way you eat the bread is similar to monkeys - pulling apart each piece. It was a cute name and the photos from Dailydelicious looked too good to resist!

So here is the recipe for:

MONKEY BREAD (recipe adapted from Dailydelicious)

Ingredients

240g plain flour

60g self raising flour

7g (1 sachet) yeast

20g caster sugar

pinch of salt

1 egg yolk

175ml warm water

20g butter

40g melted butter

40g walnuts

70g brown sugar

1 egg white

1. Mix egg yolk and water together.
2. Place flours, sugar and yeast in a bowl and mix to combine. Add salt and mix again. Pour egg and water mixture into the bowl.
3. Mix ingredient together and knead to bring to form a dough. Add more water if dough is too dry. Knead dough for around 2 minutes until it is elastic.
4. Add butter and knead the dough for around 10-15 minutes until dough is soft, pliable, smooth and slightly shiny.
5. Place dough in lightly oiled bowl and allow to rise in a warm place until double in size (1 - 11/2 hours).
6. Place walnuts and brown sugar in a food processor until powdery.
7. Preheat oven to 180oC and grease tube pan.
8. Take dough out of the bowl and deflate by lightly touching it.
9. Cut dough into 30 pieces and roll into balls.
10. Dip balls into melted butter, nut mixture and egg white, then place in prepared pan.

bread balls --> melted butter--> nut mix --> egg white

Bite size pieces! YUM!

11. Let dough rise (40-50minutes) or until double in size. Bake for 30-35 minutes. Cover with aluminium foil if top of bread becomes too brown.

Pull apart bread~~ like a monkey xD

The bread turned out nice, soft and sweet and nutty ^^ I think next time I would put some filling inside the bread balls such as jam or chocolate, just for a nice surprise :)

Banana bread - from the cafe??

One of my friends at work loves to buy banana bread from a cafe down the road. I agree, it does look quite tasty and so it was one of my goals to try and make some banana bread too!
This is my first attempt.... I may need to try other recipes or try my own ^^" But it did get my friends' approval! *THUMBS UP* Although it did not rise as high and the texture was not as "bready"... it had nice chunks of banana and walnut =) and it's the taste that counts right? ;P

Banana bread
(from http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/17901/banana+bread)

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups plain flour
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2/3 firmly packed cup dark brown sugar
• 100g chopped walnuts
• 3 large over-ripe bananas
• 2 large eggs, lightly whisked
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 100g unsalted butter, melted, cooled

1. Preheat the oven to 175°C. Lightly grease an 11cm x 22cm loaf pan and line base and 2 long sides with a sheet of baking paper, leaving 2cm overhanging.


2. Sift flour, cinnamon, baking powder, soda and 1/2 teaspoon salt into a bowl with the brown sugar, then add the nuts.


3. In a separate bowl, mash the bananas with a fork or potato masher, then stir in the eggs, vanilla extract and cooled melted butter. Using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until they're just combined - don't overmix. 


4. Scrape cake batter into prepared pan. Place in the oven and bake for 1 hour or until golden brown and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool the loaf in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool. Cut into 8-10 slices

Bread cooling in loaf tin ^^

Slicing up bread~~ can you see the banana and walnut chunks? ^^

Close up of banana bread slice

So if you see it in a cafe.... you can make it too =D Suggestions for less chunky bread would be to process banana until puree and process walnuts till crumb like.

DK bread!!

You guys are probably thinking... what is DK bread? is that a brand? a type of bread? ahhaa.. well i guess you could say both?? actually DK is a friend who is famous for his bread!! I've never actually tried it but seen photos ^^ and it looks yummy so asked for the recipe... but in the end I chose a different recipe (still similar).. and YAY!! it worked =D I also wanted to make a Pappa Roti style bread. So together... I chose: 

CONCHAS - mexican sweet topped buns 

Ingredients:

For the bread-

•  7g dried yeast (1 sachet)
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1/2 cup lukewarm milk
• 1/3 cup caster sugar
• 1/3 cup (~75 g) butter softened
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 egg
• 3 1/2 - 4 cups plain flour

For the topping-

• 1/3 cup caster sugar
• 1/4 cup (~55g) butter
• 1/2 cup plain flour
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground coffee granules

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water in large bowl.
2. Stir in milk, sugar, butter, salt, egg and 2 cups of flour.
3. Beat until smooth.
4. Stir in enough remaining flour to make dough easy to handle.
5. Turn onto lightly floured bench.
6. Knead until smooth and elastic ~ 5 minutes
7. Place in a large greased bowl, then turn greased side up. Cover and let rise in a warm place until double in size (~1 1/2 hours)
8. Meanwhile, make the topping by beating sugar and butter till light and fluffy. 
9. Stir in flour until mixture is of a thick paste consistency. Divide into 2 parts and stir cinnamon into one part and coffee into the other - BE CREATIVE! It's really up to you what flavoured toppings you would like =) you could have vanilla, orange zest, lemon zest, cocoa powder - the list is ENDLESS ~~
10. Divide dough into 12 equal round balls and place on lined baking tray. Place topping onto the surface and shape it over the ball. Make 5 - 6 cuts across the topping to form a criss-cross/shell pattern.
11. Cover and let rise until double ~40 minutes (I forgot to do this.... but it still turned out fine =])
12. Bake at 190oC for ~20 minutes or until buns are nice and golden brown.

ta da~~~ look so yummy!!!! i took them out of the oven just in time! haha

inside tasted like bread :)

DK's version! they look much tastier! i need more practice XD

Pappa roti bun!!! if only i could make this~~...



Recipe modified from http://www.food.com/recipe/conchas-mexican-sweet-topped-buns-119586