Banana and Honey Bread

Use the same basic bread recipe that was used here.
Varied by using:
6 bananas
8Tbsp good runny honey
Optional: 1 handful of almonds, cracked or chopped

Puree your peeled bananas in a blender. Pour into a measuring jug and top up with water till you have 625ml. At stage one of the recipe, use the banana liquid instead of water. Also add half the honey and nuts to dough at this point, then continue as normal.
At stage 5 divide the dough into 10 balls. Pack these next to each other in a flour dusted baking tin, where they will prove together. Before putting in the oven drizzle with the rest of the honey. Bake at 190c/375f for 20 min.

These were Jamie Oliver, so imagine my surprise when they didn’t come out very well. I’d been wanting to make them for a long time, because I love the idea of substituting the liquid in the bread with mashed up bananas, but our bananas always got eaten up before they were ripe enough to use for baking. I finally got a chance the other day, but I messed it up.

Bread making is actually so much easier then people think, but there are a few cardinal rules that you must heed. One is proper rising, and I know that. If you don’t let the bread rise properly, then it will not be good. I don’t know what I was thinking, but the kitchen was cold (no good), and I was short on time (the bread doesn’t care), and I remember thinking that it was really not ready, but I went on with it anyway. The result was really dense kind of hard, and very yeasty tasting rolls. Not what you want to end up with. They were not inedible, but that’s not really good enough is it.

I am sure that the recipe is sound, and I was just being silly, so I am going to try to make this again. I just have to wait for another batch of bananas to avoid my son’s notice long enough to get ripe enough to try again.

In case you are going to try making bread at home, here’s a good tip. Do it on the same day you do laundry. When it comes time for the rising, put the bread in a bowl with cling film over the top (put some oil on the inside of the cling film so the dough doesn’t stick to it). Then put the bowl near the dryer (not on it because you don’t want it to be shaken). The heat, and the cling film will help it rise well and quickly. A cold kitchen is not conducive to good bread.