u/Level-Giraffe-352

They are cakey and fudgy in the centre and crispy edges with gooey pockets of chocolate chips! I would highly recommend rolling the dough balls in some powdered sugar for a better looking crinkled surface, I didn’t had powdered sugar on hand and was too lazy to use a blender to make some, learned my lesson, they may look like doodoo patties but they are delicious!!!

Made from scratch, no premix. Came out very moist and decadent. Also added some chopped up semisweet bakers chocolate, recipe below

Ingredients
• 3 medium overripe bananas (about 1¼–1½ cups mashed)
• ⅓ cup (75 g) unsalted butter, melted (or neutral oil)
• ¾ cup (150 g) granulated sugar (or ⅔ cup if your bananas are very sweet)
• 1 large egg, room temperature
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1½ cups (190 g) all-purpose flour
Optional add-ins (stir in at the end):
½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans, ½–¾ cup chocolate chips, or a handful of raisins.
Instructions

1. Prep
   Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease a 9×5-inch loaf pan (or line with parchment for easy removal).
2. Mash the bananas
   In a large bowl, mash the bananas thoroughly with a fork until mostly smooth (a few small lumps are fine).
3. Mix wet ingredients
   Stir the melted butter into the mashed bananas. Add the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Mix until well combined.
4. Add dry ingredients
   Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and stir them in. Add the flour and mix gently just until no dry streaks remain. Do not overmix—overworking the batter makes the bread tough. Fold in any optional add-ins now.
5. Bake
   Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake 50–65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs (not wet batter).
   Check at 50 minutes. If the top is browning too fast, tent loosely with foil.
6. Cool
   Let the bread cool in the pan for 10–15 minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool completely before slicing (it continues to set as it cools and slices more cleanly when cool).

I would say this time I did a little better with shaping (yayyy big book of bread simple instructions), still learning how to shape them, and score them properly! Also they are sourdough

First time made baguettes, I used the same dough for the sandwich loaf and baguettes. Transferring them in to the perforated pan was tricky, I was amazed at the taste difference in the baguette and the loaf since I used the same dough 🤯! The crust of the baguettes is very crystalline and crunchy compared to the softer crust of the sandwich loaf, the crumbs of both of them was quite similar maybe more chewy in the loaf and more airy in the baguette.

Used the big book of bread recipe. Had no lye on hand so I just boiled them in baking soda and water solution for like 30seconds each and did an egg wash and sprinkled with maldon salt. They came out snappy crust, chewy fluffy inside and were delicious with some mustard!

A plain loaf and the cut up loaf is a pepperoni loaf

They are flavored by cardomom powder instead of vanilla

The recipe below

Ingredients
• 1 cup (125 g) all-purpose flour (maida)
• ⅓ cup (40 g) gram flour / chickpea flour (besan)
• 2 tablespoons (20 g) fine semolina (sooji/rava)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ¼–½ teaspoon baking soda (optional; ¼ tsp is enough for milder flavor)
• ½ teaspoon green cardamom powder (freshly ground is best)
• 2–3 pinches nutmeg powder (optional but traditional)
• Pinch of salt
• ⅓–½ cup (70–80 g) ghee, semi-solid / room temperature (grainy texture, not fully melted and not rock-hard)
• ½ cup (100–110 g) sugar, powdered finely or ¾ cup powdered/icing sugar
• ½ tablespoon plain yogurt (optional, helps tenderness)
• 1–3 tablespoons milk, as needed to bind
• Slivered or halved pistachios / almonds for topping
Method

1. Powder the granulated sugar finely if not already powdered. Preheat oven to 180°C / 350°F. Line a baking tray with parchment (light-colored tray preferred).
2. In a large bowl, cream the semi-solid ghee and powdered sugar vigorously with a spoon, wooden spoon, or clean hands for 3–4 minutes until pale, light, and fluffy. This step incorporates air for a tender crumb. (If ghee is too hard, let it sit out briefly; if melted, chill until soft-solid again.)
3. Sift together the flour, besan, baking powder, baking soda, cardamom, nutmeg, and salt. Add the sooji.
4. Add the dry mix to the creamed ghee-sugar in two additions. Mix gently with a spoon or your hands just until it comes together—do not knead hard. If using yogurt, mix it in first. The dough should be soft and pliable like play-dough, holding shape when pressed. If too crumbly, add milk 1 teaspoon at a time. If too soft/sticky, chill 10–15 minutes.
5. Pinch off walnut-sized portions (about 1½ tablespoons or 20–25 g each). Roll into smooth balls, place on the tray with space between them, and gently flatten into thick discs about 1.5 cm high. Press a few pistachio or almond pieces firmly into the top center.
6. Bake on the middle rack for 15–20 minutes. They should stay pale cream to very light golden—not browned. The undersides will be just lightly colored. They firm up a lot as they cool, so pull them when they still look a bit soft.
7. Leave on the tray undisturbed for 15–20 minutes (they’re fragile when hot). Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

I prefer a batard or a boule baked in a Dutch oven for that hearth style crust but I am sick and just got done moving houses so I went to my mils’ and with just my starter, KA bread flour and salt of course and baked a loaf in a loaf pan (open bake) and hoped for the best. I am honestly surprised, it’s my usual 75% hydration dough and I didn’t think it would be good open baked like that 🤯 mind blown

Thank you y’all for the advice on the ripeness of the cantaloupe. She broke off from the vine last sunday and I was quite nervous to cut into it incase it was not ripe, but today I did it!!! And boy was I happily surprised 😳

A cantaloupe, 3 kinds of peppers and tomatoes and a sad red onion

I am south Asian and use a lot of whole mustard for flavoring our lentils and rice and veggies plus I turned my American bbq master husband to use fresh whole mustard for the brisket rub and he has never looked back lol.

This was a small experiment to see how much mustard I can harvest from one mustard plant, literally hundreds of seeds per plant!!! The pods are kept in a well ventilated spot to dry them out so that I can remove the hull and thresh them. Usually the pods are dried out in the afternoon sun but it’s quite rainy so they are chilling inside and taking a lot longer to dry out 🫠. I could totally do this for any heirloom brassicas I grow, just leave one plant to bolt and produce seeds and you’ll be good for next few years!!!

Wasn’t home for 10days, first day back home and cucs have taken oven🫠….. 10lbs of cucs! Any who, I also got some okra, banana peppers, jalapenos, cherry tomatoes and about to be ripened cantaloupe (it was supposed to be a gherkin plant, the seeds probably got mixed up, not a bad surprise tho). Never grew any kind of melon, so would love to know how to figure out if it’s ripe or not!

Two sourdough loaves, one is plain and other is cheddar jalapeno loaf and some hot dog buns with a teeeny tiny bun for the pupper (puppy tax included)

Whole bunch of cucumbers, 2 types of kales and a whole lotta lettuce

Everything looks happy! Cucumbers are nicely pollinated by the bees, lettuce is not bolting, now I wish I had installed the shade cloth before my bakchoy started bolting, but atleast they are making seed pods for me to use next time (last pic). A basket full of greens as well for lunch and dinner tonight!

It was a choatic bake this time, my kid had a car accident (they are fine, car is totaled ) so the dough was left forgotten and it over proofed but I managed to shape it somehow and chucked them in the bannetons to cold retard in the fridge untill I had the time to bake them.🥴😮‍💨

Still trying to figure out how to properly attach it, it may act like a sail during strong winds so we are thinking of staking it into the ground instead of the pvc arches. Pretty proud of my weird little garden lol

We have bird netting installed over the hoops but at the entrance of the bed it was a task to get in and out without getting tangled into the net, so I installed this, I am not sure if it’s a good addition or not, it was supposed to be plain plastic magnetic curtains but amazon send me the bubble pattern curtains 🤷🏻‍♀️. They are removable so if it causes issues in a week or so then I’ll uninstall them.

Pic1 was clicked 2 weeks ago, pic 2 is from today after de-weeding and adding the trellises. I was surprised to find cilantro and carrots growing randomly in the gaps between the stone pathway, I vaguely remember accidentally dropping some seeds and now they are whole plants just chilling in between the stones. Kinda interesting to see how they will survive in those odd spots.

Lowkey just posting garden pics to share my progress because it’s my first proper garden and we had worked soooo hard to cut up the trees into slabs. The trees fell down in a storm last year and we milled them ourselves 😵‍💫, would NOT recommend doing that again lol.

We have bakchoy, lettuce, kale, young mustard greens, radishes