Monday, August 21, 2006

Banana Bread

C likes to eat bananas, sometimes. And often, one will remain and go brown. I don't like bananas most of the time, and usually only when they are just barely ripe, no spots but only a tiny bit of green at the top or else they are starchy. However, I do like banana bread. So I saved two brown bananas by freezing them, for use in the banana bread.

I thawed the bananas out because the recipe called for mashed bananas, and I didn't think I could peel or mash frozen bananas very well. I left them in a cereal bowl for a couple of hours, and as they thawed, they felt really really mushy. Gross, almost. And then once they were pretty much there, I peeled them and they slid off into the measuring bowl, in a slimy mess. They continued to thaw and exude banana liquid, which I disposed of because that is gross. Bananas should not produce liquid. The only time they do that is when you forget about them for so long that one day there's a brown mess on your counter and you think, "did someone spill tea?" but realize that no one at your house would have made tea, nor would they have spilled it on the counter and left it there.

Anyway, mashed bananas. Two frozen ones made 3/4 cup, just about perfectly. Mashing by stirring them up with a fork or knife and gently mushing them a bit was sufficient.

The recipe:
1/2 c shortening (I used butter, which made the baking time just about double)
1 c sugar (I used 3/4 and it was just fine)
2 eggs
3/4 c mashed ripe banana
1 1/4 c sifted cake flour
3/4 t soda
1/2 t salt

Cream butter and ugar until light. Add eggs one at a time, beating well afte reach. Stir in banana. Sift together dry ingredients, add to banana mixture. Mix until well-blended. Pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake in moderate oven (350F) for 30-35 minutes (with shortening, more like 45-60 with butter).

I used my kitchenaid mixer and ran into a little trouble. The white flat blade doesn't pick up things off the bottom of the bowl, so once the whole mixture was together and being poured into the pan, I found probably 1/3c worth of butter/sugar mixture that didn't make it into the rest. I mixed it in as much as I could, but next time should remember to take the time to spatula up the whole bottom of the bowl before calling it quits.

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