Wednesday, February 07, 2007

B-A-N-A-N-A-S! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

Go! Bananas! Go, go bananas!
You lean to the left
And you lean to the right
Then you peel down the middle
And you *HUH!* (pelvic thrust) TAKE A BITE!


The Pirate and I had a little superbowl party all our own this weeknd (that was the most anticlimatic Superbowl I've ever seen. The most exciting 60 seconds of the game was the kickoff and return.) Turns out he does get ITV1, so we bought some junk food and hunkered down for the night.

I noticed that his housemate, who was gone for the weekend, had left behind a bunch of bananas that were rapidly becoming inedible. They had reached the point of being useful for [say in Sean Connery voice] one thing only: banana bread.

You know I'm fairly handy in the kitchen. (Or you should. Come on over and let me cook for you.) But this was an unfamiliar kitchen, with no comfy recipe box containing all my secrets, and almost no ingredients. There was no baking powder, but the flour was self-raising and not plain. I'm not used to working with self-raising flour, and I had no idea if the leveners contained in it were the right proportions for my needs. Also, there were no eggs, no butter, no vanilla, no rum, no nuts, and no brown sugar. Oh, and no loaf pan. (Bloody bachelors.) So how exactly did I intend to make banana bread? Improvization.

It wound up being more of a cake than bread, but it was so good I decided that you could do it as a layer cake and cover it with buttercream or cream cheese frosting. I'm seriously contemplating that for the P's birthday, and decorating it with yellow roses and dried banana chips. Wouldn't that be yummy?

Ok enough dithering. Here's the recipe: (and I can honestly say that this is my first original baking recipe, hence the pride):


3 large or 4 small uber-ripe bananas (more brown than yellow, really really soft)
3 Tablespoons butter, soft, or marjarine
plain yogurt, a generous blob, approx. 1/3 cup
milk, a splash. your guess is as good as mine.
tsp. of vanilla or rum, your choice
1 cup sugar
2 1/2 cups self-raising flour
tsp. ground nutmeg

in a large bowl, mash the bananas smooth.
add butter and sugar, blend all ingredients until thick and creamy
add yogurt, milk, nutmeg, and vanilla/rum. blend thoroughly.
add flour slowly and blend in. (add first cup, mix until blended; add second cup, etc.)

batter should be very sticky, like dumpling dough. spread batter in a greased 9x13 baking pan, bake in a 350 F (175 C) oven for approx. 20 minutes. When dry on top and golden-brown, test with a toothpick. If toothpick comes out clean, it's done.


Serve warm with kisses and praise from very happy (and impressed) man.

7 comments:

patroclus said...

Wow, as it happens, I have three large over-ripe bananas in my kitchen AT THIS VERY MOMENT, and very few other ingredients (I'd rather be a cyborg than a domestic goddess, as Donna Haraway might have said). CB, I am going to make this! And then I am going to come back and tell you how it went!

patroclus said...

Waaaait a second - what is all this funny foreign 'cups' malarky? How much is a cup?

(I don't mean one of Annie Rhiannon's now-legendary F cups.)

Moominmama said...

good for you! can't wait to hear how it comes out.

1 cup = 1/2 pint (in America we measure dry good volumetrically, not by weight).

So if you've got a pint or half-pint glass in your kitchen, that'll do.

Anonymous said...

But an American pint (473ml) is different from a British one (568ml) - which one are you using in the recipe?

Melissa said...

I can't wait to try the recipe - it looks delicious.

Moominmama said...

ooh, i didn't know that, Anon! I used 1/2 a British pint the first time I did it, and an American measuring cup the second, so I don't think it makes much difference to be honest. It's an imprecise recipe already, bananas being variable and the quanitity of milk being undefined. Just make sure the dough is sticky, and not runny like batter.

Mr Farty said...

Mmmm, love the recipe. I just bought a bunch of banananananas (sp?) today, but they're reserved for Banoffee Pie - my recipe available on request. If there are any left at the end of the week, I'll give your bread a try though.

A few times I've been around that track...not going to get that tune out of my head for a while now. Thanks.