Stop - bananatime!

I'm sorry - I've been seeing so many jokes on Twitter about Duncan Bannatyne that stop just like that that the song is constantly in my head.  

The last forty-eight hours have been about banana.  First of all, I decided to make that beautiful breakfast option from America that I long for on occasion - banana nut bread.  Yesterday, I made use of this recipe.  

This was the outcome.  You will notice there is a bit of a divot in the top.  This was as a result of a small mistake - when I ran this through the cake cycle on my Kenwood and upended it, a splodge of uncooked cake dough came out, leaving this hole.  I put it back in on the bake cycle for a further twenty minutes and it came out fully cooked.   

 Sadly there is again a mixing issue with this - with a small amount of unmixed flour on the outer.  I think I may need to be more diligent with mixing.   It also stuck to the kneading hook a little more than I would like, leaving a big ol' hole in the bottom too.

The taste was good.  It was a little dry in comparison to the moist delicious bread I had tasted in the states but it was far more nutty.  I was intending on taking the second half of it to a mother's meeting (yes, really) this afternoon but it seemed to have disappeared between me going to bed and getting out of bed this morning.  I guess I should be flattered that the husband thought it was worthy of eating so much of.

blurry nuttiness

So, I had to make another batch.  

Me: "I think I need to add a bit more banana, it just doesn't taste banana-y enough."

Him: "So you're thinking it's more nut banana bread rather than banana nut bread?" 

I'm fairly sure that was the last thing he said to me last night.  The breadmaker has taken over.  

Today's effort was even nicer.  I upped the banana content to 190g this time.  The result was either a little moister than I had intended or I didn't spray the tin well enough - as three quarters of the loaf came out and the rest just, stayed there.  

The reconstructed loaf.  It was more banana-y and a real hit with the rest of the mums.  It's something I'll definitely make again!

In the process of making the banana nut bread I was thinking about Little D and food.  Little D is also known as Daniel but more often Little D.  To the extent where I actually forget sometimes that his name is Daniel.  Daniel is five and a half months old.  He's almost sitting up unaided and has been looking very longingly at our food for a while now.  He finds it particularly frustrating watching us eat.  He's tried to grab plates and cutlery from the table, he's eyed up a pint of beer before now. 

Knowing that banana is a good first food I tried a bit of an experiment.  I tried to put an end in front of him.  He sort of tried to go for it but didn't seem sure.  I held it to his lips.  He started to suck on it.  I've been trying him on a little bit of formula milk recently and he pulls an absolute look of disgust and really hates both bottles and sippy cups.  No such fear with this.  He looked a little confused and then he looked a little pleased and sucked on the banana piece with a little more fervour.  I'd say he only actually managed about a half of a teaspoon.  Hardly worth writing home about really but it's a start.  I'm hoping that we will actually be able to start proper baby led weaning next week.  It all depends on him sitting up unaided.  It's something I'm excited about but terrified about in equal measure.  Here he is after his first taste of banana!

This should have posted last night but didn't.