Marbled Rye Bread

Two doughs, one tasty bread. I had hoped for more contrast in color but the flavor made it worthwhile:

You start with two bowls filled with the same dry ingredients: flour, rye flour, caraway seeds, yeast and salt:

and to one bowl, in addition to water, molasses and a bit of shortening you add some color - I used cocoa powder dissolved in water:


After a short knead (rye flour can get gummy) and a few hours on the counter, here are the two doughs, complete with my handprints from turning them out of their bowls:

You can marble your loaves in a few ways. I elected to try cutting my doughs and clumping them together instead of spiraling:

Here are the loaves ready to go into the oven after a second rise in the pan. At this point, you could really smell the chocolate from the darker dough:

The sandwich ready result did not, however, prevent dessert from being had:

Black-and-White Banana Loaf

Don't let the title fool you - this is really a pound cake:

I like bananas, but only before they turn brown. Because of this, I'm always looking for new uses for old bananas. My mom bought me a fantastic cookbook by Dorie Greenspan - "Baking: From My Home To Yours" that contains more really amazing banana recipes in one place than I have ever seen. Here are some of my assembled ingredients: vanilla, eggs, milk, bananas mashed with lemon juice and rum, a mix of flour, salt and baking powder, softened butter, and brown and white sugars. I find that a recipe proceeds more smoothly if most of the ingredients are measured before you start, even if it means doing a few more dishes.


Here is the first addition to flour to most of the wet ingredients. the flour was added alternately with the milk. After that, the banana mixture was added in:

Here are the two batters - on the left, melted chocolate and butter mixed into  little less than half of the basic banana batter:


And here is the dough, marbled in the pan before baking!