I have never made banana bread before, so this is really exciting for me!
We had been buying bananas lately, and we usually ended up with one or two that were too ripe for either my SO or I to eat, and so we decided to let them get dark, and stick em in the freezer and eventually make banana bread (why are there so many n’s and a’s in that word?)
So tonight, I did. I found a recipe online (it was taken out of the Joy of Cooking, so I figured it might be decent) and I tried it.
I mixed all the flour and baking power and salt, and then in another bowl I mixed the shortening and the sugar. The recipe then said to “blend until creamy”, so I started blending. Did I mention that we only have an old manual egg beater from the 70s (it’s got a lovely lime green handle!). “Creamy” wasn’t quite happening…I was getting lumps of sugary shortening stuck in the blades. So I grabbed a fork, scrapped off the egg beater, and tried to blend with the fork. Not happening either. Just smaller lumps. So I gave up on that and tossed the bananas in anyways. They were all nice and mushy, and I was able to get a somewhat lumpy “creamy” substance from that. I then added an egg, and that helped too, but it always had tiny lumps of shortening in it, no matter how hard I spun the handle on that stupid, cruel egg beater. I then started adding the flour and other stuff to the mix, which made the egg beater USELESS, as it got way too thick for my puny little arms to blend. So out comes the fork again, and I’m beating that mix like my life depended on it! I think I stood there for a good 20 minutes or more, trying to get all the flour mixed in and getting the whole thing not-so-lumpy!
I finally had had enough (seeing as my arm was going numb), and so I just took the more-or-less smooth mix and dumped it into the pan. I then placed it into the preheated oven at 350F, and waited the requisite “hour” in the recipe. It wasn’t cooked yet. So for the next HOUR, I checked every 15 minutes, and then at the 2 hour mark I just took it out of the oven, since I decided (with the help of a butter knife stabbed into the bread) that it was cooked enough. I let it cool a bit, and then flipped it over to get it out of the pan, half afraid that it would slosh out all liquidy and have my SO laugh at me for it!
I then remembered that I hadn’t greased the pan.
Lucky for me, neither of these things were an issue! The bread was solid, and I didn;t even have to cut it out of the pan…it just slid right out!
I tried a slice, and my SO did too, and it is GOOD! I love banana bread, and this is a really good one! I had added more banana than necessary (1 1/2 cups rather than 1-1 1/4) and I didn’t have lemon rind, or nuts or anything fun to add to it, but it is still a good banana bread!
I am so proud of myself! I talked to my mom today already, but I’m going to call her tomorrow and let her know all about it!
woohoo! 
