On the road to a bakeoff

I had a false start on the way to my wonderful sour cream banana bread. One of the four recipes I was going to make was this Banana Banana Bread, also from Recipezaar. This recipe is the highest rated banana bread recipe on that site, with twice as many fantastic reviews than any other banana bread. I was so excited about it, I had decided to make the recipe as written even though I had initially decided to halve each recipe.

I had worked out how many bananas I need (some recipes measured the bananas in cups, others specified the number of whole bananas) and had assembled everything ready to go. Then my butter just wouldn't soften. I was reluctant to microwave it soft, as I tend to over heat and melt the butter and I wanted everything to be perfect for my first blogging event. It took hours. I took my butter and eggs out of the fridge at 10am on Sunday morning, and it wasn't until after 4pm that it was finally soft enough to be workable.

So, with a combination of anticipation and excitement, I got to cooking. I sifted my flours, I mashed my bananas. I even pushed my banana through a seive to try and make my banana bread silky and consistant (it took a long time!). I mixed it all up, poured it into the tin and popped it in the oven. Then, I started cleaning up. I put away my flour container, my jar of sugar, my block of butter... ?? Why did I still have a block of softened butter?

I forgot to add the 1/2 cup of butter to my banana bread. On the upside, it became a fat-free banana bread. On the downside, the bread was hugely dense and took ages to cook. It still tastes very nice, although I can't eat it unless its quite heavily toasted because it is so dense. I am looking on the bright side of this goof: since there is no butter inside the bread, I can add butter after I toast it!


Banana Banana Bread
from Shelley Albeluhn on Recipezaar

2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter (quite possibly optional)
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 1/3 cups mashed banana

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius and lightly grease a 9 x 5 loaf pan.

In a large bowl, combine flour, soda and salt.

In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended.

Add the banana mixture into the flour mixture and stir just to moisten.

Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and bake for 60-65 minutes.

Let bread cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.