Banana Loaf Bread/ Straight Dough Method - Bread # 1



Banana bread perfect for banana, peanut butter and cheese sandwich. Yum!

Adding flavour like fruits, vegetables, beans etc. in baking is very common. We used to think of chiffon cake when incorporate these ingredients. Well this time I like to add them into my bread. Recently I did some experiment on adding these natural ingredients into bread. Some of the ingredients make me try twice or more in order to get the right texture of bread. For the coming post I will share with all on these series of bread recipes. Some are from cookbooks, blogs recipes and some are recreated. Hope you all enjoy reading as much as I enjoy baking.

Most of the bread recipes I used straight dough method. Amazingly the results are just as good as gelatinization, water roux and sponge dough methods. The bread still stays fluffy and soft at least the next day.

I'm sure we all very familiar with pumpkin bread as quite numbers of bloggers have this recipe. I'm not sure when and where I got it and I did try and the result was great! Base on the pumpkin bread recipe I start creating other flavour of bread. However I would like to start with this banana loaf bread. With the amount of banana in this recipe, it can bring out the banana flavour without adding flavouring essence.

Before I get into the recipe I like to highlight on Bake for happy kids posts on her interesting investigation on gluten gelatinization.

1) Gluten Gelatinization - Can it retain bread texture?

2) My answer to my gluten gelatinisation question. 

I took tips from her investigation in my baking. Extend the proving time. Do drop by her lovely blog for more useful tips.

Most of the time I will start with mixing wet ingredients then adding dry ingredients. You might notice instant yeast is the last ingredient that I add in. Once form dough do knead the dough for about 2-3 minutes before adding margarine or butter. I found these steps are helpful for the yeast to perform well.

Another point that I like to highlight is the bread dough is indeed sticky. Base on my experience sticky dough tend to produce moist, soft and fluffy texture bread especially adding these unusual ingredients. So feel free to use machine. Fyi I'm hand kneading for these bread. I consider this is part of my workout! Ha..ha... However it is still manageable when the dough becomes smooth and elastic. Well let us move to the recipe.

Ingredients:

(A)

150g mashed banana

1 egg

2 tbsp sugar

½ tsp salt

(B)

200g bread flour

100g low protein flour

1 tsp yeast

(C )

20g margarine/ butter

Methods:



My loaf bread been munched by my sons when I was busy preparing dinner in kitchen. >o<

I couldn’t get the complete loaf bread photo.



1. Put all ingredients (A) into a bowl and stir to mix. Add (B) and knead to form dough.

2. Add margarine/butter and continue kneading to form smooth and elastic dough. Cover and let it prove for 1 hour 15 minutes.

3. Transfer to working surface. Divide the dough into 3 portions (about 200g each). Shape into balls and rest for 10 minutes.

4. Flatten each ball into rectangle and roll it up like swiss rolls. Keep aside and proceed with the other 2 portions. Again flatten the 1st swiss roll into long rectangle and roll up into swiss rolls. Repeat the same for the 2nd and 3rd.

5. Place the dough inside a greased sandwich tin (I'm using L21cm x W10cm x H11cm sandwich mould) and rest for 1 hour.

6. Bake at 170C for 28-30 minutes.