Second iteration. Now, with improved scientific test! Here is the first iteration from last week.
Cuisinart processor is not the best choice of machine for creaming sugar into butter. A blade isn't as good as a beater. It flings the butter onto the side of the bowl where it stays. The stuck mass does not move until the butter is sufficiently soft to fall back onto the blade, or until enough ingredients are added so that the mass weighs down. Brown sugar follows, then egg, vanilla, four small old bananas, and spices; cinnamon, clove, and salt all in near trace amounts, 1/4 teaspoon, 1/8 teaspoon, and 1/2 teaspoon respectively.
Here is the test. It is a pH test without a pH tester. I do believe there is a pH tester stored away in boxes of aquarium equipment. Some day I'll have to go find it. I'm certain I can go right to it because I'm organized that way. But for now the batter will be sampled and diluted with water. The hypothesis is that the batter will bubble with baking soda due to the extra acid provided by the pineapple which is in the batter in a significant amount, but will not respond as well with baking powder because baking powder already has its own acid.
Batter diluted with water ↑.
Batter diluted with water + baking powder ↓. It foamed readily and unexpectedly.
Batter diluted with water + baking soda. ↓ Well shiver me timbers and blow me down the pox-marked plank grub failed to foam. Unexpectedly.
d
Blow me, I said, down! The distempered puppy-kicking codpiece of a hypothesis is wrong. I do not understand how this batter can be so much more alkaline than acid. My handle on reality is now shaken to the very core of my being. <--- Not really. I am still not completely convinced and now proper scientific testing must be performed.
But do you know what this means? It means, baking powder it is, then. For now.
The banana bread did rise up to the top of the pan, but it did not bulge as banana breads, zucchini beads, etc. typically do. I wonder why. Could it be because I poked the batter with a knife drawing a rectangular mark parallel to the sides of the pan as one does with a soufflé to help it rise straight up? Well then, I won't do that any more. Could it be because the pH balance is still not correct? Dunno, deweye. Maybe I had just read a recipe like normal people do.
The bread reached an internal temperature of 200℉ / 93℃, but the whole thing remained mostly wet. I like that, but you might not.
Wanna hear something ookie-spookie? Okay, goes like this: right at the moment when I was finishing this, whipping rum into the whipped cream, and readying for the final photograph, my brother calls from four states west of here. I tell him, "Dude, I'm making banana nut bread with pineapple right now." He goes, "Whoooa, Dude, so am I. I put pineapple in mine too." Is that weird or what? He has no interest in this blog so he was unaware of the first try a week ago. It's just another of those preternatural coincidences. He didn't seem impressed with that at all.
2 comments:
1. It could be that your baking soda has given up the ghost. You could check its effectiveness by mixing a little with vinegar and see if it fizzes.
2. Pineapple has that odd enzyme that breaks down protein. Its complete properties are a secret known only to the Masons and a few Anabaptists, but it's possible that its enzymatic properties transcend the mundane pH scale by which more worldly substances are measured.
3. Call it karma or call it the long reach of the Dole Food Company, but those who steal a pineapple may experience lifelong pineapple anomalies.
You own the talent of brilliant writing I must say. Your post has those facts which are not accessible from anywhere else. I request you humbly please keep writing such remarkable articles.And yes i have book mark your site thingsimadethenate.blogspot.com .
Post a Comment