Even if you weren't I'll share anyway.
If you have never been, I suggest you make your way over to Smitten Kitchen. It is a glorious place to find beautiful recipes with lots and lots of "make you want to make it" photos.
She organizes her recipes by type and by ingredient so when I decided to make banana bread I looked on her site first. I knew she would have a recipe for me to use. How could she not? Banana bread is a basic recipe, one everyone must have in their repertoire. (Can I gloat that I spelt that right without looking it up? haha, but I used the wrong form of "their"...oh boy. Good thing I caught it before posting this. ;D )
She always has some witty explanation before the recipe and beautiful photos. So as I was scrolling down the page, I held my breath when it came to reading the actual recipe. Would I have all of the ingredients on hand? Could I make this wonderful, beautiful bread?
For the most part, yes. And like I said previously...it tastes like Christmas. :D She did not use her mixer for this recipe. But I wanted to, so that I didn't have to mash my nanners. Just one bowl for this recipe. But if you don't want to use a mixer, mash the bananas by hand. :D
Smitten's Banana Bread
See the original recipe in all its glory here: Jacked-up Banana Bread
Ingredients:
-3 to 4 ripe bananas
-1/3 cup melted salted butter
-3/4 to 1 cup light brown sugar (I like things sweet, so I used 1 cup)
-1 egg, beaten
-1 teaspoon vanilla
-1 tablespoon bourbon (I only had rum, and used that instead. It was scrumptious) (optional)
-1 teaspoon cinnamon
-1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
-Pinch of ground cloves
-1 teaspoon baking soda
-Pinch of salt
-1 1/2 cups of flour
-Extras: ~1/4 to 1/2 c. chocolate chips; a handful of walnuts.1. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Coat your 4x8 loaf pan with butter. (I like to add flour to the pan and coat the butter with it lightly. Never done this before? Add a little bit of flour, start with a Tbsp to the buttered pan. Then gently tap and rotate the pan until all of the butter is coated with flour. Tap out excess.)
3. Mix in the egg, vanilla, and bourbon (or rum). Add the cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Scrape the sides as necessary.
4. Next add the baking soda and salt. Gradually mix in the flour. It will be a runny-ish dough.
5. Extras: This part is definitely optional. But I personally don't think banana bread is quite the same without nuts. Just me? Leave them out. :D Because my husband doesn't like nuts, I added them at the very end. I poured my batter, and topped half of the loaf with them. I sprinkled that side with a little bit of brown sugar. My husband likes banana bread with chocolate chips in it, so I added chocolate chips to the other half of the loaf. It was very scientific, my method. I sprinkled the chips over the loaf then used a tooth pick to push them down into the dough.
6. Pour the mixture into your buttered pan. Bake at 350°F for 45 minutes. Or until a tester comes out clean. (I started my timer at 45 minutes, and I think I added a little bit. The original recipe says 50 minutes, but I always get nervous that I'll burn stuff. :D ) Cool on rack. Remove from pan and cut and serve. :D
So I spent all that time with a tooth pick pushing down chocolate chips...all so my husband might like the banana bread. Did he eat any of it? No. Did I love the side with chocolate chips? Yes. It was wonderful. The only thing missing was some walnuts. :D Next time I'll mix in chocolate chips before pouring (if my DH hasn't eaten them all by then; he loves to snack on them as a dessert...half of a bag in a night isn't uncommon in this house.) Then I'll add walnuts to half of the loaf, but no brown sugar since the chocolate will make it sweet enough. I also would probably use the lesser amount of brown sugar in the dough since there will be chocolate chips in the entire loaf.
Guess what I have on top of my fridge! Brown bananas...this bread will be made again in the near future. :D
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