Shimmy Shimmy Coconut

I had 5 medium-sized bananas that were leaving a less than desired aroma in my dorm room, and the best way to use them up is surely banana bread. In reality, the end product was more of a cake, but if you call it banana bread then its guilt-free - right? I used a double batch of this recipe and made a crumb topping by generally using the crumb topping from this recipe.

Slightly burnt on the sides but it was incredibly light in colour and banana flavour and had a really nice cake texture. It was also one of the easiest banana breads to make, so I’d definitely recommend trying it if you have bananas that are starting to gross you out.

The smell of homemade freshly baked bread has got to be right up there as one of the best smells ever. It totally makes the time consuming side of baking well worth the effort. Late last year I bought this book. Before it I had attempted a ‘La Dolce Vegan’
bread recipe once and got put off by the extent at which my fingers were covered in sticky dough (a rookie mistake to use both hands to knead dough!). But last year I was flipping through the pages of this bread book and got inspired. I’ve tried a few recipes (the bagel recipe is truly wonderful that I’m in the process of optimising), but did not have the foresight to takes some pictures until now. As soon as I saw the Victorian (soy) Milk Bread I was salivating. I made a double batch which required 750mL of milk! The time needed to rise was one hour then another hour to prove. The book mentions it has a soft crust and crumb, but I over baked the first loaf and it ended up being a crunchy crust instead. In hind sight it was stupid to make a double batch as my oven is ridiculously small and as such, the 2nd loaf was left to prove for about 2 and a half hours, resulting in a very dense, flat loaf. Nevertheless, the first loaf was so delicious fresh out of the over:

There’s nothing better than hot bread smeared with margarine and a thin layer of vegemite!