Cinnamon swirl banana bread

Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread

Ingredients

For the bread:

·         3 over-ripe bananas, smashed up

·         1/3 cup melted butter

·         3/4 cup sugar

·         1 egg, beaten

·         1 tsp vanilla

·         1 1/4 tsp baking powder

·         dash of salt

·         1 1/2 cups flour

For the swirl:

·         2 Tbsp cup sugar

·         1 Tsp cinnamon

Directions

1.        Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour a loaf pan. 

2.        Mix bananas, butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla together. Sprinkle baking powder and salt around on top of the banana mixture. Then gently stir in flour. Be careful not to over-mix!

3.        In a small dish, mix together the  2 tbsp sugar and 1 tspn cinnamon.

4.        Add 1/2 of the batter to the loaf pan and then sprinkle the cinnamon-sugar mixture all over the batter in the pan. Add the rest of the batter.

5.        Bake for 50-60 minutes, I used preheated  microwave oven in convection mode for 55 mins.

Garlic buns

I was always tempted by the pins related to breads and wondered if I could make bread in my convection microwave. One day while looking for microwave cooking I stumbled upon this  blog ...  http://www.cakesandmore.in/2013/03/how-to-use-convection-microwave-for_7.html       and yay! now  I had to try something  ...I decided to try garlic buns given here...
http://www.cakesandmore.in/2013/03/how-to-use-convection-microwave-for_7.html (similar other recipes on my pinterest board - http://www.pinterest.com/deepalisharma/tasty-bites/)

The picture of the garlic pull apart buns was too tempting to have a try at it and recipe also seemed easy, but ugghhh yeast, how to get that particular gloripan yeast..well I looked for the yeast packet I had bought some time back with the idea of making home baked fresh bread..and it was some wonder yeast..but this was not letting my spirits down! Any ways..I decided I will go ahead with whatever I have..and here is what I did...

What I used for bread-
Maida (plain flour)- 3 cups
warm water- 1 cup
dry active yeast- 1 tbspn
salt 1 tspn
sugar 2 tspns
olive oil 2 tbspns
1 egg + 1 tspn milk for basting the buns before baking
sesame seeds- 1 1/2 tbspn

For the filling I mixed 5-6 large cloves of crushed garlics in 50 gms salted butter, added 3tbspns chopped coriander, 1/2 tspn chilli flakes and 1/2 tspn pepper.
Working-

• So I went by the recipe step by step..it was my first chance, even if I decided to experiment with some other yeast-  warmed water for half a minute in microwave, added sugar and then yeast.
• Since it was pretty cold in Delhi , I kept this mixture in preheated microwave (4 mins convection at  180 deg centigrade) for 30 mins till the mixture got frothy. I  found this idea of using preheated oven for frothing yeast and poofing dough to be too good. 
• To the mixture I added maida and salt and mixed well. Added olive oil and kneaded it for 5 mins.
• I kept the dough in a glass bowl, covered it with cling film and placed it back in my preheated oven for around 2 hours till the dough doubled in size. It took too long for me- may be it was too cold or the yeast, so the time may vary for you. Keep a watch on the dough.
• When the dough was ready I first made the filling by mixing all the ingredients.
• I took out the dough and knocked down to remove locked air. I dusted the table top with plain flour and rolled the dough into  less than half an inch thickness sheet (oval).
• Applied little more than half of the garlic filling on the sheet and rolled the sheet from one end to another (smaller side).
• Using a thread I cut around eight no.  1"long rolls and placed them in a round pan.
• I then applied the leftover garlic mixture on top and sprinkled sesame seeds on top.
• Covered the pan with cling foil and kept in in preheated oven for poofing again for around two hours till the buns doubled in size.
• Preheated the oven at convection for ten minutes again .
• Applied the egg basting  and kept the buns for baking for 35 mins on convection at 180 degree Centigrade.
• The freshly baked buns smelled so good and tasted yummy..

A MUST TRY if you want to try something in breads...