Banana bread perfected

First real post for you, and what have I got? Banana bread! Don't judge - a quick bread is still bread.

Looking back on the old posts, I seem to still struggle with the same issue of always cleaning out my freezer. This seems to be a constant thing for me. I hate shopping for myself, but I love shopping for food, so instead of an overflowing closet, my freezer gets more and more difficult to close. 

I also hate throwing out food, and bananas are the number one Thing I Refuse To Throw Out. How can you, when you know they could be used for something yummy? 

In a fit of wishing for more freezer space, I took out a big bag of frozen bananas I've been adding to over time. This bag is big. When I first took it out, I thought "hey, I can make two banana breads with this!" Um, no. I weighed it, and I could make four and a half banana breads with the whole bag. 

Change of plans, then. Make the two banana breads (meetings tomorrow - someone will eat it!), and figure out what to do with the other frozen goo ASAP. See my not-a-professional-blogger photo on the right, ugly counters and dirty coffee maker in all. Don't the breads look good, though?

Given my penchant for always having old bananas around, I've settled on a banana bread recipe that fits all my criteria: 

• Can be made without using the mixer (no nap interruptions)
• Can be made with stuff I have in the house at nearly all times
• Has chocolate chips in it
• Isn't too chewy or greasy

I started with a recipe from The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion All Purpose Baking Cookbook, and changed it a bit to suit my tastes. I think cinnamon and nutmeg taste funny with chocolate chips (and kind of funny in banana bread in general), so those get omitted. I also think mini chocolate chips create a better banana bread to chocolate chip ratio in each bite, so I use those rather than the standard size. 

Banana Bread
adapted from The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion All Purpose Baking Cookbook

Note: If you double this, use an enormous bowl. I also like using the weights rather than the volume measures; it makes a difference in the quality of the outcome.

Ingredients: 
2 large eggs
1 cup (7 ounces) sugar) 
1/3 cup (2 3/8 ounces) vegetable oil
1 cup mashed banana (2 to 3 very ripe, large bananas, 7 - 9 ounces)
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 2/3 cups (11 3/8 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup (8 ounces) full-fat (not Greek) yogurt, buttermilk, or sour cream
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Instructions: 
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

In a medium-sized bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar, and oil. Blend in the mashed banana and vanilla. Thorougly mix together (whisking is good; sift if you're into it) all dry ingredients. Add to banana mixture. Mix quickly and thoroughly, then add in yogurt and chocolate chips until just combined. 

Pour into a greased 9 x 5 loaf pan. Bake about 1 hour, though start checking earlier (40 minutes to see if you need to add a foil tent to prevent over-browning).

Hey there!

It's been a really long time since I wrote on this blog. 

Lots of stuff has happened in the last (cough) 5 years. Moving - having a baby (now a 3 year old!) - changing jobs - spouse changing jobs. Baking and writing took a backseat amongst all the changes. 

January brought a resolution that has pushed me to get back in gear with baking and to write. I hate calling it a resolution - it's more of a commitment to myself to try something new. A couple of years ago, the resolution was to become good at making pie dough, since that had always been something I avoided for risk of failure. Result? I now make an amazing all-butter pie dough, and have made lots of pies. So this is not your typical "lose 10 pounds" or "exercise more" resolution. No, this is one I'll actually keep. 

Anyway, the resolution this year is to make lots and lots of bread. Thanks to an amazing workshop with a colleague, I felt I could finally get bread. Previous bread attempts failed, likely due to lack of kneading enough, or old yeast, and I had put it away as a thing I could do. This year, armed with my new learning, was going to be about bread. 

So far, it has been. I am blowing through flour at an astonishing rate, and my son has eaten his favourite breakfast (as he says, toast with cinnamon sugar and butter) on bread I have made since the start of the year. Success! 

And with that, here goes. No promises on how much I'm posting, though.