Well, I had another adventure in baking today. I haven’t baked much since I started Weight Watchers, since it is much too much temptation for me and also because I’ve been trying to cut down on the amount of wheat and refined sugar I consume. Being an avid baker {when I have the time}, I was feeling a bit deprived.
However, in this past week I’ve had two excursions back into this field of cookery and have another experiment or two in mind for the future.
Excursion 1:
On Monday, I came back from a semi-vacation down to see my folks, and after I got back from doing the necessary grocery haul, discovered that I had missed putting an important item on my shopping list: cookies for my “little” brother to take to work with him. Oops. Having no wish to turn on the oven in the middle of a heat wave, I decided to experiment in baking in the microwave. I pulled some frozen bananas from the freezer, hauled out my trusty silicon loaf pan, did some Googling, and made Banana Bread (recipe from here).
Result? Success! Although, of course, the microwave does not create the same kind of crust as the oven does, Banana Bread is a moist loaf and the lack of a crispy crust did it no harm. The loaf had a much finer crumb, an almost cake-like texture, but it was quite, quite lovely. And the bro was pleased.
{No pics–the loaves were a bit insipid-looking without the browning that the oven affords, so I didn’t take any. Maybe next time, I’ll make the batter as muffins and top them with some kind of frosting. They’ll look much prettier that way. I even have a silicon muffin tin to “bake” them in.}
Excursion 2:
Ever since I decided to cut down on wheat in my diet, I have been hankering to try out some of the many alternative flours that are out there. I regularly read a very excellent blog on vegan food and lifestyle by Sayward at Bonzai Aphrodite, and was inspired by her rave reviews about coconut and coconut-derived foods to try my hand at baking with coconut flour.
I decided to start simple, did a little Googling, and arrived at Nourishing Days‘ recipe for Fluffy Coconut Pancakes. I gave her recipe a go, but instead of making pancakes, I decided to pour the batter into my waffle iron instead.
My waffles were flopples.
I must, however, assure you that it was not the fault of the recipe. The recipe was fine–it tasted great {though for my taste it was a trifle egg-y, and the coconut texture was a bit different–much more fiber-y than wheat flour}. No, it was the decision to make the batter into waffles that was the fail.
My waffle iron is one of those that creates big circular waffles, which are dividable into quarters, and the size of the resulting waffles was the problem. The coconut pancake batter was just too delicate to hold itself together when it came time to be removed from the waffle iron. As well, for my first waffle, I failed to spray the waffle iron, since I hoped that the non-stick griddle was enough. Not so much. So the first one came out in rips and tears, resulting in bite-sized waffle chunks. {Here you must imagine a picture of some incredibly mangled waffle-ish looking crumbles. I didn’t take one as I was busy eating said crumbles as the next waffle baked.} Waffle # 2 fared a trifle better. The iron was sprayed, which made a difference, but, alas, the coconut crumb just wasn’t hardy enough to stand up to the pressure of being removed from the pan. I was able to avoid too much mangling, but the waffle came out in rather crushed quarters.
So much for that.
However, the experiment taught me a few things, and next time, I will make pancakes {small ones} and leave the waffle iron for another day.
craving toast 
Leave a comment