Bananas and Kittens
Oops, I did it again. I completely failed to post for about a month…In my defense, I have a pretty good excuse: I moved on June 22. Let me make it up to you anyway, with this delicious banana macadamia bread.
Oops, I did it again. I completely failed to post for about a month…In my defense, I have a pretty good excuse: I moved on June 22. Let me make it up to you anyway, with this delicious banana macadamia bread.
Reason #5,000 I love James Beard: his whiskey cake recipe ends “I like to pour an extra half cup of whiskey over the cake.” I also love that this dense, boozy, fruit-and-nut packed brick is called a “cake.” Really, in modern baked good taxonomy it is probably closer to the “quick bread” phylum than the cake one. James Beard’s recipes and original cookbook, though, hark to a time when baking was more primitive and the primordial soup of “Sugary Things” had not yet separated into sharply defined branches. Well, maybe it had in France. But not here in ‘Murika!
So, I am officially on a baking kick. Cookbook Archaeology is not on its way to becoming baking blog…but there will be a lot of flour flying in the next months. Baking fits well in my life right now; I make delicious things Sunday and bring them into work Monday. And sweets spread cheer on what is usually the most daunting day of the week. Apparently I’m also on a James Beard kick, because this delicious cheer – a persimmon quick bread – is from his 1973 Beard on Bread.
When I was making an Ancient Roman feast a few months ago, I started thinking about yeast. In particular: how did people culture it before the days stores started selling it in cakes and packets? At this point, I really should be thinking more about Trusts, Estates, Torts, and the bar exam, but it’s so easy to fit a bit of kneading and some yeast thoughts into the day for study breaks. The result: sourdough.
I woke up at 5:30 AM yesterday morning for some ungodly reason. As I lay in bed pondering what to do about this, I thought, bakers get up before this hour every day – so why not bake? My younger stepsisters were heading to camp around noon, so I made a Monkey Bubble Bread from my non-vintage Achilles heel cookbook – Baked Explorations.
So, it turns out the bar exam is kind of hard. My posts will probably be pretty sporadic these next couple of months: apologies in advance. I’m happy, however, to have fit a banana-berry bread in yesterday.
We all knew it was coming: you can’t have a Royal Wedding Breakfast without scones. So, I chose to start with the obvious. And to add a curveball and make them gingery!