Here's where we can share all our talk of edible floury paste.

I am still experimenting with breadmaking. I am currently exploring yeast.

I have a bowl of yeasty dough sat rising. It has been sat there for two hours at room temperature. In a few minutes from now, I'm going to put it in the fridge for eight hours.

My ingredients for it have been water, plain flower, instant yeast, salt, butter and Henderson's Relish.

I used relish as I don't have any apple cider vinegar.

Why the fridge phase? I always bake my bread as soon as it's 'ris'.

According to this video, it does something important to the gluten.

I have just set about my first experiment in making microwave banana bread.

I have knocked together the dough, using flour, baking powder, a mashed banana, water and a pinch of salt.

Later tonight, I shall nuke it and see how it turns out.

I am about to bake my banana bread.

Hope it goes better than the commentary.

I have eaten it.

It was edible but it wasn't an improvement on bread without bananas, and it's left behind a banana-y aftertaste.

I will not be making it again.

The bread I've got has slices that are too long to fit in my toaster. So, I'm having to put them in vertically, and that means the top of the bread's sticking up out of the toaster and not getting toasted properly.

Sainsbur have ceased to sell my favoured turn-to sliced bread.

Nothing else seems adequate as a replacement.

I've just made my best microwave bread yet.

Recipe:

One mug.

Put a healthy amount of fake butter in it.

Microwave at 800 watts for 15 seconds, so it's starting to melt.

Add 2 heap tablespoons of plain flour.

Add 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder.

Add 2 more heap tablespoons of plain flour.

With a spoon, mix the fake butter and the flour together until, "crumbly."

Add 4 tablespoons of water.

Stir until a smooth dough/batter is achieved.

Put it into the microwave at 800 watts for 90 seconds.

Remove it from the microwave. If the top is dry, it is done. If the top of it still has a damp patch, put it in for another 30 seconds.

While it's still hot, tip it out of the mug and onto a plate.

It came out ever so airy and cake-like. I was very impressed with myself.

I actually prefer that. It gives you the choice of starting at the crunchy end and working towards the softer end, or vice versa. Or you can mix it up by tackling a different corner each time.

I think I have to try this recipe.

Later this evening, I shall be reusing last night's microwave bread recipe but, this time, without using any water.

Hmm, the one thing that I felt was actually right this time about the recipe were the proportions of ingredients.

My prediction is that without any water, not (nearly) enough steam will be generated within the dough and the light, aerated 'cakey' quality will be considerably less pronounced.

Perhaps it's good to experiment with amounts of water incrementally so as to hopefully achieve an optimum 'bake'.

Also, I'm curious as to how this microwave bread keeps if not eaten relatively quickly.

Finally, I imagine that you have some awareness as to how a me-crovavé actually cooks?

Something something agitates water molecules or something?

The less liquid in the mix = less for the oven to work with in terms of a medium for creating heat.

BTW - the "crumbly" stage of the mixing process is a standard part of the process for making bread and cake (r*bbing in) and indicates - as I said above - that an ideal pre-cooking/baking consistency has been achieved.

Again, this indicates that the balance of ingredients and their consistency when blending the components is correct (white flour and very soft 'butter').

It's all alchemy in the end.


A slice of bread and some jam having it off with each other, yesterday