My First Successful Banana Bread

Yesterday I decided to use up the old bananas we had at the counter to make some banana bread. Hubby was telling me about the vegan banana bread that she made every weekend, which inspired me to try the same. 

  

Plus I fond a recipe card in my Mom's car that looked really simple, except I couldn't find it yesterday when I needed it. So I googled it, and found a similarly simple recipe that only had 7 ingredients and about 5 steps. 

FIrst I preheated the oven to 350F. Then I got 4 ripe bananas, peeled them and placed into a large mixing bowl. I was going to hand mash them but it turned out too arduous for my poor hands and spoon to handle. 

 

So my Mom dumped it into the food processor along with the egg. In less than 5 seconds flat it was smushed to banana smithereens. A note about this - try not to get the banana mush too mushy because you want to have some visible chunks to add some texture to it (and to taste the bananas when you eat it). 

I heated the remainders of my butter (about 1/3 like the recipe called for) in the microwave on high for 30 seconds and dumped it in. 

 

Then I measured a teaspoon of baking soda, and dumped that in along with the remainders of my vanilla extract, and a pinch of salt. I wanted to follow the recipe to the dot this time, lest it turn out to be one of my brick-and-mortor disasters like before. 

After that I mixed in a cup of sugar, except the white sugar ran out, so I replaced it with brown sugar. I have to admit that I didn't fill up to one cup to save some calories, but it was close to it.

 

Finally I added in a cup and a half of flour (oh yea we didn't have normal flour so I used the cake flour that we had in the cabinet) and hand mixed it into the banana mixture. 

I put some greased parchment paper into a 4x8 loaf pan and carefully dumped the mixture in. Then I popped it into the oven and put on a timer for an hour. 

After coming back home from Alice Fazooli's, I came back home to check up on my banana bread. I thought 1 hour was a little too long, but alas, the bread was brown and soft just like it should be. I was so happy that I vowed to follow the recipe every single time from one on! 

The brown sugar replacement was a good call, because it made the banana bread more rich in texture and enhanced the banana's natural flavor. The bread had just the right amount of sweetness and chewiness. 

I rewarded myself to some ice cream afterwards.

Cherry ice cream with a cherry on top - how sweet it is.