White Bread

I made bread! While this may seem glaringly obvious as I am posting about it but, never did I expect my first attempt to make bread actually turn out to be, well, bread. I’ve always heard that bread is really hard to make and assumed myself that it would be because it’s about technique rather than simply following a recipe but I did it! And I’m very proud of myself however crazy that may seem!

Someone I work with, Glen, told me that he made his own bread and so I asked him to give me a very simple, basic, potentially Kathryn-proof recipe for bread. And guess what? It worked! He said that the simplest bread to make was white bread and wholemeal is overall trickier because of the texture of it. My mum also said from experience that homemade wholemeal bread can turn out rather dense. Needless to say, I went with the white option but after a few more practices I think I’ll branch out a little more.

A key part about making bread is the kneading. I kneaded mine for about 10 minutes in total at two different stages in the process. The idea of kneading is to stretch out the dough (I’ve heard this activates the yeast but that would be a lie…). Somewhere along the line through watching various cooking programmes and reading recipe books I picked up a simple methodical kneading technique. Once you have the dough on a floured (very important!) surface I pull the dough towards me wit the knuckles of one hand and simultaneously push it away from me with the heel of my other hand. I then fold it in half give it a quarter turn and so it again and again and again until I’ve been doing it for 5minutes.

Whether this is the proper way to do it or not I have no idea but it seemed to work well for me as, I may have already mentioned this along the way but, I made bread!

Mango Bread

This is an amazing recipe. I’m just gonna put it out there from the start that this is fantastic. I’ve always really liked the idea of banana bread but as soon as bananas go yellow and start going soft and tasting like, well, bananas I don’t like them and so consequently, I do not like banana bread. Mango bread on the other hand is genius! Mangos are definitely one of my favourite fruits so when I came across this on Kitchen Runway I just had to try it! Its so good I’m going to make it again this weekend as I’m eating the last piece of it as I type this [with a cup of Lady Grey tea, perfection!]

My loaf was much bigger and paler than the recipe I was following, I think 2 smaller loaf tins were used, or perhaps one longer one than I was using. I used a 2lb silicone loaf tin. If you haven’t got a loaf tin and are looking to buy one I would not recommend silicone ones at all. Once they are full, which tends to happen when you put mixture in them to cook, they spread sideways in the middle meaning you don’t get a nice, neat loaf shape. You get a splodge in the middle of you loaf-ish shape. A metal one will make sure your loaf keeps in shape and I think improves the cooking.

My pictures really don’t do the finished product justice. You should look at the picture on the blog where I found the recipe as they are much better! The cake stays really moist for a long time (but it was only in our house 5 days before it was gone!) and the mango adds a great texture to the loaf. The bright orange fruit is also quite aesthetically pleasing and did I mention it tastes great?! While mango can sometimes be a bit expensive, it’s definitely worth it and it does make quite a big loaf.

Please try this!!

Here is the recipe:

2 cups plain flour

2 tsps baking powder

1 cup sugar

2 tsp cinnamon (I left this out)

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

½ cup butter, melted

¼ cup oil

2 ripe mangoes, chopped

Preheat oven to 175°C

Sift flour into a large bowl.  Add baking soda, sugar and cinnamon and stir the dry ingredients to combine

In a medium bowl, beat eggs, add vanilla extract, melted butter and oil.  Combine the ingredients and add to dry ingredients

Using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon stir to combine the wet and dry ingredients.  Fold in the finely chopped mangoes

Pour batter into a greased loaf pan and bake for 55 – 60 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean

Lick Your Spoon!

Let cool in pan for 10 minutes.  Remove bread from pan and cool on cooling rack