Thursday, January 5, 2012

We ate our way through Christmas

The holidays are such a wonderful season! Pretty lights on the trees (which B&H called "piddy"), lots of presents to open, TONS of great things to eat. B&H did indulge in the holiday season - cookies, pancakes, monkey bread, etc etc. I have blog posts coming for all those, I promise. But first I need to back track a bit and write about this wonderful banana bread recipe I found.

You might recall that I have trouble with quick breads. They tend to sink, be raw in the middle, and burnt on the edges. It's a curse I've tried to overcome for many years. I've also tried banana bread recipe after banana bread recipe and nothing really works.

Then I got this ceramic bread pan. That seems to help.

And I worked on my patience. Turns out I was taking the bread out before it was done.

Anyway, I did find a good recipe lately that I want to repeat over and over again (which, sadly, could be one of the reasons I'm back on the Weight Watchers band wagon....). There was something about this recipe, which uses buttermilk in it, that made it so tasty that babies barely got any. Whoops.

The recipe comes from a blog called Two Peas and Their Pod, which at first I was so excited about because I thought it had to be another twin family blog. But after investigating a bit more, I think the peas are just a man and a woman who have so much in common that THEY are the 2 peas in a pod. Oh well, they still have great recipes on their site!

Buttermilk Banana Bread
Not sunken!




























Cook Time: 50-55 minutes

Ingredients:
 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup mashed bananas (3 medium sized bananas)
4 tablespoons buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon baking soda

Directions:
1. Grease and flour 1 large loaf pan (9 1/4 X 5 1/4-inch) or whatever combination of pans you’d like. I used a mini loaf pan and a 8 1/2 X 4 1/2 loaf pan. You can also make banana muffins with this recipe, if you wish. Set pans aside.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs, mashed bananas, buttermilk, and vanilla until the batter is well mixed.
3. Add in the flour, baking powder, salt and soda. Mix until well combined. Divide batter into greased and floured pans and bake at 350 degrees for 50-55 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Perfect, crackly top. Mmmm.

4. Let bread cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Loosen the bread with a knife and carefully remove from pan. Finish cooling on rack. Slice and serve once cooled.

I love the rich, yellow color of this bread. It tasted as good as it looks.



 You will be happy to know that I have decided to save up my money for a nicer camera, so my grainy, unfocused iPhone photos will soon be a thing of the past. Of course, between taking care of B&H, running this household, keeping up on chores, writing two blogs (visit our other one here), Facebooking, and having time for myself and my husband who knows when I'll have time to use the new camera, but I hope somehow the days get an extra hour in them for me to learn. :)

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