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Thursday, February 17, 2011

Packaging Care


     I have this most amazing friend CV. But, whenever I talk to him, he is stressed and in the library and swamped with work. It makes me want to give him a hug, except that he goes to school in Canada, which is a long way for even a telepathic hug to travel. So, instead, I send him food. Last semester, I sent him off some banana bread and cookies. This semester, I thought I would do the same. Loaf cakes and cookies are foods that travel very well. But, one mustn't be repetitive. What new kind of well-travel-able cake can I make? The answer came to me in my usual obsessive perusing of different food blogs. Joy the Baker had posted the perfect recipe: Peanut Butter Banana Bread.


     On being polled, my friend agreed that Peanut Butter Banana Bread was indeed what he wanted. And so, I bought peanut butter and bananas today. It was the kind of day where I had work and class and then an hour and then work, and now I'm here. It was the kind of day where I went grocery shopping for peanut butter and bananas right before my work at night, realized I didn't have enough time to return home, and brought my peanut butter and bananas to work. Needless to say, I had a peanut butter and banana snack (read: a lot of peanut butter with a banana) while working. There are perks to being a food blogger and buying small streams of groceries. And, I love peanut butter.


     Banana bread is really just an amazing food. You can add chocolate (I had to), you can add peanut butter (Joy the Baker or whoever first thought of it is a genius), berries...I'm sure you could add almost anything to banana bread and it would come out delicious. You can also subtract, if you don't have brown sugar, or yogurt, or flax meal for example - Joy's recipe called for it, I simply looked the other way and substituted when I could. Whole milk for yogurt was an easy substitution to make. I still have to use up that gallon of whole milk, sigh.

"Taste testing" the banana bread
     Banana bread is also ridiculously easy. Its a one or two bowl, one or two spoons operation at the most. And it comes out so moist, and homey, and fragrant, and delicious every time. This banana bread was no different. While warm, it was soft, with melty chocolate, and hints of cinnamon and spice, and then that almost salty peanut buttery taste flowing through it all. It was delicious. My friend PN who taste tested it with me does not like the butt of a cake, so she got a middle piece which she says was very soft and fluffy. I ate the butt, and it was crunchy and delicious. Just right for a midnight snack.


Peanut Butter Banana Bread 
Adapted from Joy the Baker Adapted from Cooking Light 

1 Loaf Pan
1 1/2 cup All-Purpose Flour
3/4 tsp Baking Soda 
1/2 tsp Salt 
1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/8 tsp Allspice 
3 Ripe Bananas, Mashed (if they are not so so ripe: microwave them for a little and then mash them)
1/4 cup Milk  
1/3 cup Peanut Butter (I used Extra Crunchy to get peanut bits, Joy used Creamy. Go wild) 
3 tbsp Butter, Melted
2 large Eggs 
1 cup Sugar 
1/4 cup Chocolate Chips (I had a Hershey's bar so I crumbled it up and used that...Ya) 

Place a rack in the center of the oven and pre-heat to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9 by 5 in loaf pan and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, ground cinnamon, and ground allspice together. In a medium bowl, whisk the mashed bananas, milk, peanut butter, and melted butter together. Then, whisk in the eggs and sugar. Mix until there are no sugar lumps. Next, pour this wet mixture into the large bowl with the dry ingredients. Fold everything together with a wooden spoon until well mixed. Then, add the chocolate chips. Pour batter into the loaf pan and bake the cake for 55 to 65 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Remove the pan from the oven when done. On a wire rack, cool the bread in the pan for ten minutes. Then, run a knife along the edges of the pan, and invert the bread onto a wire rack to cool completely. 

4 comments:

  1. Yayyy! :) I was happy to see this pop up on my reader

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  2. this just reminded me to cut a piece and save it for you!! happiness all around.

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  3. thank you! unfortunately, its now on its way to canada.

    ReplyDelete