Fresh from oven

Never have I been so motivated to get up early in the morning on a weekend to bake for breakfast. However, I'm not sure what have gotten into me, maybe a whole month of getting up really early for meeting cause it.

Last Saturday, I got up early and saw the last banana on the table and suddenly I felt like baking. I know I'm a little weird. Baking and cooking sometime help me relax my mind and body. I do that sometime to help me destress. Try it sometime, it really helps, however of course you need to be in the mood, else it will be even more stressful.

After couple minutes of looking around the pantry, I found some almond as well, so might as well make banana nut cake for breakfast. After 15 minutes, here is what I whip up and it is ready to go into the oven.


25 to 30 minutes later, I have fresh banana cake on the table for breakfast.
The recipe is courtesy of Joy of Baking.

Recipe:
1 cup (115 grams) walnuts or pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped (optional)
1 3/4 cups (245 grams) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated white sugar
1 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
3 ripe large bananas (approximately 1 pound or 454 grams), mashed well (about 1-1/2 cups)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Garnish: (Optional)
1 large banana, sliced or dried banana chips



Add another cup of joe and my breakfast is set. Time to sit down for breakfast by the window to enjoy the garden and the morning sun. Hmmm... only if we can do this everyday. Ah... what a day it would be.

Hot Dog Bun

It is a long weekend and everyone is probably at their vacation destination enjoying themselves. As for me, this year I need to work this long weekend so no holidays for me. Oh well, at least I would not have to work Christmas I hope.

Since I'm staying home, I thought maybe I will do some baking. I found a bread baking book that I bought a couple years ago yesterday night while unpacking. After flipping through, I have decided to start with the easiest of all, a dinner roll. Since dinner roll can be a little plain, I have decided to make a hot dog bun out of it. To be on the somewhat healthy side, I decided to go with wheat flour. After 15 minutes of kneading this is what it looks like while I leave the yeast to do their work.



After 90 minutes, this is the end results of the hot dog bun I'm making. Not really what you get from the chinese bakery store, however I think it is close enough although comment I got from my first customer is that the bun is not puffy enough :). I blame it on the yeast being lazy and not doing their work.



I would not give up, hopefully the next time I try it, the results would be a better one.

Taking it slow

It had been some time since I last take it slow, stay at home and do some baking. Maybe one of the reason is because, whenever I bake, we can never finish it since there are only two of us at home. Since I plan to stay home and just relax, and I saw the banana in my kitchen that is going to be bad soon. So I thought maybe I can whip up some muffin for breakfast tomorrow. So here you go, after 30 minutes, we have hot muffin off the oven and just in time for afternoon tea as well.



We have moved in for 3 weeks now and haven't gone over to our neighbors to say and introduce ourselves yet. While having dinner yesterday, our neighbors on the right of our house came knocking on our door with some fresh nectarines, how sweet of her. We even forgot our manners and didn't ask her to come in. Well, the house is not really ready for visitor yet so hopefully she will pardon our manners for the meantime. Maybe next time I can bake for them :), to get to know the neighbors more.

I think I will try to do more baking whenever I have the time. So, who wanna come visit me?