Baking with Less Sugar by Joanne Chang Read Free Book Online

Put the melted butter in a small bowl. In a separate small bowl, mix together the sugar and cinnamon. Roll each dough nugget into a little ball and dip into the melted butter, shake off any excess butter, and then roll around in the cinnamon sugar. Place the nuggets in the prepared cake pan, close to each other, but with a little space in between each nugget, to cover the bottom of the pan. When you fill up the bottom of the pan, continue by stacking them on top of each other. When all of the nuggets have been buttered and sugared, drape a piece of plastic wrap or a damp lint-free cloth over the cake pan and let sit in a draft-free, warm place for another 1 to 1 1 / 2 hours. When the nuggets have proofed—that is, when they have grown in size and feel soft and puffy—they are ready to bake.
    8. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350°F [175°C]. In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining butter and cinnamon sugar and then whisk in the cream. Pour this mixture evenly over the top of the nuggets (it will drown the nuggets) and place the cake pan in the oven. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, or until the tops of the nuggets have turned light golden brown, rotating the pan about halfway once during baking.
    9. Remove the monkey bread from the oven and let sit for about 5 minutes. Invert the bread onto a serving plate. If there is a little bit of goo on the bottom of the cake pan, scrape it directly onto the monkey bread with a rubber spatula (or whisk in 2 to 3 Tbsp cream or water to thin it out and pour it over the monkey bread). Serve warm.
    10. The monkey bread is best enjoyed the same day you bake it, but it can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 2 days. If desired, rewarm the bread in a 300°F [150°C] oven for about 10 minutes.

BETTER THAN FLOUR FAMOUS BANANA BREAD
    If there is one item that I eat the most of at the bakery it would be our banana bread. I’m completely addicted to the ends of each loaf that the bakers trim off before they slice it up to sell on the pastry counter, and often the morning baker will put the day’s ends into a little container for me so that when I make the rounds, they are ready for me to start snacking. Except that it’s not quite such a little container. Nicole, my executive pastry chef, once put all of the ends together, one on top of another, and it was almost half a loaf. This was when we just had two locations; I don’t want to think about how big the ends all add up together now that there are four Flours.
    In creating a low-sugar version, I knew it had to have that same super-banana-y taste and tender texture that I love about the full-sugar version. I fiddled around with the sugar amount, getting it as low as I could so that the texture was still moist, while keeping the taste plenty sweet by making sure to use super super-ripe bananas. I also cooked some of the bananas to ensure that the sugars really broke down and came shining through. This recipe will not work with picturesque sunshine-y yellow bananas—you need the brown spotted mushy ones that are full of natural sugar. You will be rewarded with banana bread that rivals the original with less than one-third the amount of sugar.
    MAKES
ONE
9-IN [23-CM] LOAF
75 g/ 3 / 4 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
175 g/1 1 / 4 cups all-purpose flour
1 / 2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 / 2 tsp kosher salt
3 large eggs
75 g/6 Tbsp sugar
70 g/ 1 / 3 cup vegetable oil
3 large or 4 medium super-ripe bananas (really ripe—I mean it! Black and spotty on the outside and soft and sweet on the inside)
90 g/6 Tbsp crème fraîche (see page 24)
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
    1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 325°F [165°C]. Butter and flour a 9-by-5-in [23-by-13-cm] loaf pan, or butter and line the bottom and sides with parchment paper.
    2. Put the walnuts on a baking sheet and toast for 8 to 10 minutes, or until lightly toasted. Set