Goin to grandma's house...

[jkbff]

My best friend and all his buddies are washed, packed and ready to go to grandma's house.

I'm headed to my spa of sorts (grandmas house) and will post parts of my project as I go!

It involves 8lbs of rhubarb and 2.5 cases of frozen brown bananas!

I bought him a few years ago, his maiden voyage was turning a case of tomatoes into tomato sauce. I've tried a few loaves of bread and they were horrible so hes been sitting on a shelf ever since.... I can cook, but I am scared of baking.

We are gonna try several versions of banana bread, with cinnamon and without, with and without rhubarb, with and without nuts and mixes made with butter, vegetable shortening and lard just to see how things all turn out.

We have the time and plenty of ingredients so grandma was curious to see how things would go. Thankfully we can give all the bread away if we don't like the results! I'll just blame it on beginners error.

 

[appnut]

I've been very pleased with bread from my Pro 600 KA.  Been baking bread for over 30 years. 

 

[jkbff]

There's nothin wrong with the mixer, its all me. I don't know the first thing about baking.

Cooking, I can modify while its in the pot on the stove... Baking has to get through the entire process before I find out if I've done something wrong or not.

He's the 7qt commercial with the DC motor. Makes nice ground beef. Im hoping grandma will let me make chokecherry jelly with him this year. I love the food strainer attachment.

 

[jkbff]

7 loaves of banana bread (the round cake was a double batch)

Cinnamon rolls are in the oven.

M&M cookie dough chilling and rhubarb bars are up next then done for the night. We used 21 bananas.

Had my first oven fire... Damn butter and sugar dripping on the element...

 

[jkbff]

The jackwagon that started the fire...

Was minor, just fat on an element. I didn't think of putting a pan underneath the rolls, my oven has the element hidden...

 

[launderess]

Have fun at Grandma's!

Ta have! See!

 

[appnut]

Congratulations Joshua!!!  Very proud of you!!  Especially the cinnamon rolls!!! YOU DID IT!!!!!

 

[frigilux]

Wow, you really jumped into the deep end of the baking pool! Nice work!

As my sister is fond of saying, "Casseroles are forgiving; baking is science."

 

[jkbff]

The recipies I used...

The banana cake was my great grandmother's recipie. We baked it in an angel food pan for 1:20.

The buttermilk cinnamon rolls were from America's test kitchen. Use a drip tray!!!

The rhubarb banana bread was Kevin's from Cavalcade of Food.

 

[jkbff]

Grandma washed dishes. She said "You've cooked most of your life, you know how to read. Ask questions if you have them otherwise I'll keep the dishes cleaned!"

I had a blast, though I was tired. I didn't get much sleep and grandma's house doesn't have air conditioning.... We were using the kenmore double wall oven she has. (Speaking of, I need to post some pics of it because grandpa futzed with it and it needs some parts. She doesn't want to replace it.)

It was nice having counter space. She keeps asking why I like to use her kitchen, everything is so old and outdated.. I said because you have counter space. I actually have room to breathe and move in the kitchen.

That fridge of hers is concerning me though. Its only a few years old, its one of the LG made Kenmore Elites and the ice maker/water dispensor stopped working, it says er 1f and you cant adjust the temps. The fridge stays at 41....

Anything vintage, grandma has it. I kept using her old pans and bowls etc. She said why not use the new stuff? I said the old stuff works better. She smiled and winked at me. Her old dinged up loaf pans browned better than the new pans. I was tempted to dig out her hobart K5, but I wanted to use mine. We were gonna go to the butcher house and bake, the ovens are bigger in there but we decided to stay in the main house.

I wished I still lived out on the farm.

 

[warmsecondrinse]

Wow! It looks like you two had a lot of fun. Be sure to write down everything she tells you. If she uses a 'handful' of flour for something, run around after her with a measuring cup, lol. Don't laugh; my grand-aunt literally did that to get my great-grandmother's chrusciki recipe written down. 

 

I pumped my grandparents (and my ex's Italian g'parents, too!) for info on cooking, wine making, etc. before they passed on. As they got older I spent more and more time with them ... always asking questions to fill in any holes/gaps to make sure I had my info correct. Of course, now that they're gone I have a million more questions for them, lol!

 

Jim

 

[mattl]

One other tip for dealing with "A handful of flour" would be to weigh the amount.  If the bowl is set on a good scale as the stuff is added it's easy to keep track of the amounts.  I do all my baking now in grams, I convert cup measures to weight and get the same results most of the time.  Humidity can affect some recipes, and there you have to learn and be the judge on how it should look/feel.

 

Glad you had a great time.

 

[jkbff]

At it again...

My project for the night...

 

[jkbff]

So.... my range has a fan in the oven... It doesn't have a heating element around the fan, but the fan is there. I'm gonna attempt to use the quick bake option to see if I can bake three round pans of banana cake.. I wanna see if it comes out even

It's a Frigidaire Gallery. Has three racks. Hidden element and a fan... I've made lasagna in it before. Once.. and some fish sticks.... I need to use my appliances more. :/

Maybe my cinnamon rolls will overflow and I'll get to use my self clean...

IF the big cakes turn out, I'm gonna see if I can bake 8 loaves at once ...

 

[jkbff]

Two down, tons more left...

 

[jkbff]

:/ I ran out of sugar and crisco...........

I used Mom's recipe. I doubled everything for the night, the two fluted pans, one had nuts and one was sans... A double batch makes about a gallon of batter so I put a quart of batter in each loaf pan. Was going to make 4 with nuts and 4 without. I couldn't make make the 4 without because... I ran out of sugar and crisco lol. 4 Loaf pans, 50 minutes to bake at 325.

I still have a ton of nanners left. I only used 18 nanners tonight.

I've gotta figure out something to do with some of these nanners... ... tooooo many nanners...

I bought 8 of those 88 cent steel loaf pans from walmart... Is there a way to season those?

The oven seems to be doing ok with the fan going, not over cooking or over temp.

Oh, how long do you guys leave your cakes in the loaf pans before flipping them out? .... I took two out immediately, that didn't work, left the other two for a few minutes after running a knife around the edge, the bottom didn't release nicely...

[this post was last edited: 7/10/2015-05:31]