Bread Baking, teach the youth! also Banana Blackout Bread from Bon Appetit
The guys did the baking this weekend.
Few things in life are as satisfying as a fresh out of the oven, crusty, loaf of bread and butter. In our case it was no-knead bread with truffle butter and Life Improvement Sauce ™.
We've been sampling several different No-Knead recipes, I think this one from NY Times is a good mix of easy and not too much time. Some recipes require three or more days prep time. The ingredients are almost no cost as we buy bread flour and yeast in bulk. Bread baking is mostly a small time investment and a bit of planning ahead (24 hours in this instance).
#1 son wanted to learn to make it. It was an opportunity to make a double batch and compare the Dutch Oven method to baking in a Lekue Bread maker.
The dutch oven baked loaf was definitely larger, had more open cell structure, and a bit more crustiness. The one baked in the Lekue was a bit smaller, denser and featured a more loaf like shape. They tasted the same. #1 son preferred the Lekue loaf as it was MUCH easier to slice.
Look at that steam escaping the crusty loaf.
I made Blackout Chocolate Banana Bread, twice.
The article mentions that it makes a 9x5 loaf, yet the recipe instructions state "Lightly coat an 8½x4½" loaf pan ". I carefully followed the instructions on my first attempt, and about half of the top spilled out of the loaf pan and made a real mess of our oven. I was NOT happy.
I hit the amazon prime and purchased a commercial 9x5 loaf pan and tried again. This time it turned out just like the image featured at Bon Appetit. I suspect the test kitchen there at Bon Appetite actually used a 9x5 pan but adjust the recipe for the home chef. It was a frustrating experience.