Yeasted Banana Bread

http://technicolorkitcheninenglish.blogspot.com/2008/11/yeasted-banana-bread.html

After 2 not so satisfactory experiences of bread baking, I'm more determined to bake a good loaf of bread.  Yee Sum Jennifer made this bread for us which was so moist and tasty, I decided to try it myself.  I forgot her suggestion to double the banana to 2, but followed the recipe completely.  The result was really good.  Finally I can make bread successfully!  Thanks Yee Sum!

I suspected the main reason I failed in the last 2 tries was time (well, I didn't really fail, the bread were ok, but I want them to be totally without the smell of yeast).  I started as soon as I returned from work this time and let the dough proof at room temperature.

Yeast started to foam.  Time to add flour!

I was supposed to proof the dough for 1.5 hours, but I went out to pick up groceries.  I left it in the bowl for 2 hours.  Kneaded a few times to get rid of extra air and put it in the loaf pan.



Wow, after one hour, the dough was so big that it almost overflowed from the pan!



Oven picture again!  It almost touched the heat wire :-)  I covered it with foil after taking this picture.



My first loaf of bread!  Looks kind of irregular shape.  I forgot to knead it to a cylindar shape before putting it in the loaf pan for second proof.



After one hour, I took it out from the pan and let it dry on the side.  Bottom of it was quite wet.



I heard that freshly baked bread is not as tasty as bread baked the night before.  This became my kids breakfast the next day.  Not bad eh?

Funny thing was, I was so happy that I wanted to bake another loaf for my mom immediately.  Adrian wanted to help so I let him pour the flour in for me.  I was talking and measuring at the same time.  I miscounted the flour and ended up with a loaf of sunken top chewy "thing"!  It's in my garbage bin now.  Sorry mom, you'll get the bread, some time later!