Banana-Zucchini Bread

    

     Today, I decided to do the laundry. I decided to wash all my sheets and all my towels. I decided to reorganize my closet. I have piled up all the dishes, and I will do them All. Because my parents are visiting. Not just my parents, but my parents and my little brother. (My little sister having decided to go to school on the West Coast she cannot join the reunion, but I will see her soon so all is well.)

     Struggling to get my comforter back into its newly washed duvet cover a little while ago, I felt a strange kind of vertigo. My family is visiting so I'm cleaning my apartment. Wasn't it just yesterday that I was sitting on the couch folding the laundry with my mom? That I was complaining about the sandwiches she'd made me to take to school? That I could come home and there would be fresh baked bread stored, as always, in the slow cooker? Yes, I get it back for a little while over vacation. But is this, this living in an apartment and making my own meals and folding my own little store of laundry, is this real life now?

     If it is, its a good thing my parents are visiting. I want to be pampered for a little while. I don't want to cook my own meals. I want to be driven around in the car, in the back seat with my little brother. One of my very wise friends the other day commented on our lives at college, how we are constantly running around. No two hours are spent in the same place between different classes and meetings and studying. Its true, and now I need a respite, a little haven. And that is what parents are for, right?

     Just like this bread. I know I gravitate towards banana bread and zucchini bread, so it seems inevitable that a banana-zucchini bread is making its way onto my page. But, when one has half a zucchini in the fridge and wants comforting food, this does seem the way to go. This bread is dense and moist, full of banana flavor and the heartwarming knowledge that one is eating a vegetable. But most importantly, with its cinnamon and nutmeg goodness, this bread made my apartment smell like home. A home my parents and brother can come visit and fill full of home-like memories.

Banana Zucchini Bread
Adapted from Joy the Baker

2 large Ripe Bananas
3/4 cup Granulated Sugar
1/4 cup Vegetable Oil
2 tsp Vanilla
1/4 cup Milk (or use Soy Milk to stay vegan)
2 cups All-Purpose Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/8 tsp Nutmeg
1 cup Shredded Zucchini

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8 by 4 (or 9 by 5) loaf pan.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt, and set aside. Next, in a separate mixing bowl, thoroughly mash your bananas. To your bananas, add the sugar, oil, vanilla extract, and milk. Whisk everything together until incorporated. Using a wooden spoon, mix these wet ingredients into your dry ones until just combined. Fold in your shredded zucchini, and scrape the batter into the loaf pan. Bake for 45-50 minutes, testing with a toothpick to make sure it comes out clean and the bread is ready. Once it is done, take it out on the oven and cool it on a wire rack for ten minutes in the pan. Then, upturn the cake onto the pan, and leave it to cool completely - or slice and eat right away.

The Great Cake Part III: Banana

     

     The last layer! The final piece! The end! Well, not the end. After all, there is frosting and all that jazz to go. But still, getting to the last layer of cake is pretty exciting. Ya, ya I know there are only three layers. But I've never done this kind of cake project before. Picking all the layers myself, doing them one at a time and freezing them. I am just an amateur, and now I'm going to be amateurishly gleeful at getting to the third layer of my three layer cake.

     All this glee was compounded because AN and I actually made the chocolate and banana cake layers on the same day. We are so efficient! And I made a lot of other food! (Recipes to come later). Man, it was a good day. Making anything with bananas is also so satisfying. AN was pureeing (i.e. mushing) up the bananas and the smell that comes from that is just like baby food - in the best possible way. It's so homey and comforting and simple. Yes, I'm waxing eloquent on the smell of mushed up bananas. But, they really smell super good! Try it.

     So why did I decide to do a banana layer on my cake? Other than the joy of mushing up bananas? I suppose banana cake is less common than banana bread. It is just the moister, sweeter, slightly fancier version. Mine included a little bit of expresso powder, which I guess elevates it, but you can put that in banana bread too. Banana cake is just an excuse to take banana bread further. To take it into the realm of icing filled desserts instead of just homey comforts. The banana deserves recognition too! And where best to get that recognition? My cake of course. And I just love banana-y desserts. I made banana bread this day too, don't think I don't love it. Happiness all around in banana land.

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.