Baking Day

It was baking day at the Gaia household today. Unfortunately, not in the solar oven, a combination of soccer game (to make up for a rain day) and clouds prevented any solar oven cooking.

But, I made 2 loaves of whole wheat bread. It rose more than I've ever seen it rise and Mr. Gaia forgot to turn the oven to "bake" from "preheat" so the tops got pretty toasty. I think it will be okay, though.

Then, I made banana nut muffins from my amish friendship bread starter. I used 3 cups of starter (and then fed the remaining starter with more milk, flour and sugar), and then the following recipe (adjusted for the massive amount of starter I used):
2 overripe bananas, mashed
1/3 vegetable oil
1 c whole wheat flour (fresh ground)
1/3 c turbinado sugar
2 eggs
3/4 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1/2 c starter
nuts
vanilla
milk

I only used 6 eggs and 1 1/3 c oil then I added milk and vanilla by feel. I didn't use many pecans because I just didn't have many (this is when I miss living in Oklahoma, we used to ALWAYS have pecans because we'd pick them up ourselves).

I ended up with 4 dozen mini muffins and 2 dozen - 2 regular sized muffins. I baked the mini muffins for 10 minutes and the regular sized muffins for 20-22 minutes on 350F.

I didn't have any starter left to share, but it's been passed around so much that I'm not sure who I would share with anyway.

I find that the freshly ground wheat flour makes for a softer, tastier product.