Banana Bread

I had brunch with Robin and JA this morning and then just did stuff around the house.

Like make banana nut bread. I keep forgetting how easy this is to make. For example, it doesn't require any baking powder, which always solidifies into something I have to scrape at to get a usable amount. My recipe requires only baking soda (and eggs) for rising. Here's how I make it nowadays.

Banana Nut Bread

3 (or 4) ripe or overripe bananas
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
1 2/3 cup flour
1 cup oatmeal
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon milk
1 cup nuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mash bananas in large bowl. Add sugar, oil, and eggs and mix well. Add flour, oatmeal, and baking soda to form a little mountain on top of the gooey ingredients. Chop the nuts if they aren't chopped yet.

Then mix the dry ingredients somewhat as they rest on top of the gooey ingredients. Then add a "drop" of milk (I think of it as more of a splash of milk and I guess it's about a tablespoon) and stir. When it's starting to get well mixed, add the nuts and finish mixing.

Coat the inside of a loaf pan with oil and pour in the batter. Bake for one hour or until a fork stabbed into the top near the center comes out dry.

I use whatever sugar is handy, walnut oil, whole wheat pastry flour, walnuts and store-brand PAM made with olive oil. (Because olives go good with banana bread.) All but the sugar are supposed to be semi-healthy equivalents to the usual. And I don't know why, but it's cheaper for me to get walnut halves than walnut pieces, so I chop them myself. (Note to D: You're supposed to wait until the last second to mix the wet and dry ingredients, which activates the baking soda, so you can put it in the oven shortly thereafter.)

There's none of that business of trying to get butter at just the right temperature to mix it with the sugar (without melting the butter, which is cheating, I mean which destroys the air bubbles). No scraping at the baking powder. And at the end, I only have to wash one bowl, two forks, two measuring cups, a measuring spoon, a rubber spatula, a knife, a cutting board, and a bread pan. Oh, and it's yummy.

My sister prefers to substitute chocolate chips for the nuts. When she is offering me banana bread I do not refuse. But if I am eating the whole thing myself, I'll try to pretend it's healthy.

I guess you know what banana bread looks like, but here's a picture. I'm a little paranoid about stuff being raw in the middle, so I tend to err toward burning it. But this one looks okay.



I can't make any more slices yet until it cools more because it's too crumbly.