night baker strikes again! witnesses say banana bread target

Whenever I let bananas get a little too ripe, I stick them in the freezer and wait for an opportune moment to make banana bread. Banana bread is definitely one of my ‘specialties’ (if someone who bakes for one can be said to have specialties), and I’ve mostly used The Joy of Cooking’s quick bread recipe in the past. However, I noticed the last time I baked it that it didn’t taste especially banana-y (made up word alert!). So when the urge to late-night bake struck in the early hours and I also conveniently found four frozen bananas in my fridge, I decided to go hunting for a new, improved banana bread recipe. As we all know, the internet is our friend, so I browsed on a couple of cooking sites until I came upon a recipe that looked promising. Of course, I did make some modifications, but as long as it turns out all right, you’re allowed to do that. So say I, master of my own kitchen. Or perhaps, mistress thereof.

Banana Bread

INGREDIENTS

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup brown sugar (I used white because I’m fresh out of brown)

2 eggs, beaten

2 1/3 cups mashed overripe bananas (4 or 5 should do the trick)

PERSONALIZATION (because life needs spicing up sometimes)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon (approximate) ‘Pumpkin Pie Spice’

(optional) 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350°F (I wanted a moist loaf, so I lowered the temperature to 330°F, and baked it longer). Lightly grease a 9x5 or 8x4 inch loaf pan.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt and spices. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Stir in eggs, vanilla and mashed bananas until well blended. Add banana mixture to flour mixture; stir only enough to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.

Bake in preheated oven for an hour and ten minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, and then turn out onto a wire rack (I don’t have a wire rack, so it just stays in the pan for a while…no ill effects noted).

Hold on, I’m going to do a taste test…

Oh, it’s good. Very moist. But delicious nonetheless. Not the crumbling kind, and very banana-y as hoped for. Now go on…make some yourself!

late night stress baking triple chocolate style

I spent a lot of my first year in Atlanta feeling extremely stressed. I didn’t deal with it particularly well, but a couple of management mechanisms did kick in during the second semester, one of which was baking. Specifically, late night baking. Whenever procrastination aligned with “my brains are scrambled, oh my goodness I have a paper due in four hours” and both of those were in the latitude of I-might-just-fall-asleep-on-my-keyboard (not AT my keyboard, but literally ON my keyboard…poor Macbook), I would leaf through the few cookbooks I have, and experiment with a new recipe.

Most-referenced cookbook award goes to The Joy of Cooking, which I picked up a reverence to very early in life from my mother. I only have a second-hand paperback copy that I purchased at a library book sale, but I aspire to one day own the hard cover version in my mother’s cabinet (or at least one just like it). Second in line was The Latin American Cookbook, which had a couple of interesting sweet potato recipes. Recipes baked (or experienced, if you will) at 11pm or later: scones, biscuits (butter and butter-less), lemon sugar cookies, pumpkin bread, banana quick bread, mini-cupcakes, sweet potato crisps (the English translation more or less), and as of last night, triple chocolate cake mix cookies. There’s something soothing about putting out the ingredients, measuring and mixing, setting the timer, and getting a set result. I’m not saying that all of the baked goods have been perfect, but it’s a formulaic process, and you can reasonably depend on a certain product if you follow the directions to the T. Life and schoolwork often don’t work that way. So as a coping mechanism, as a procrastination method, and as a proven way to produce sweets and dirty dishes, late night baking takes the cake (pun intended).

Without further ado, last night’s cookie recipe (as scavenged from an anonymous recipe website which I’ve forgotten the URL of):

Triple Chocolate Cake Cookies

INGREDIENTS

1 box Triple Chocolate Fudge cake mix (other flavors would do just as well)

½ cup softened butter or margarine

¼ cup brown sugar (I used white, however)

2 large eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350°F. Mix all ingredients except chocolate chips in largish bowl. After batter is well stirred, add in chocolate chips. Roll dough into ¾ inch balls and place on cookie sheet. You may dip balls in confectioner’s sugar before placing on cookie sheet if preferred. Place cookie sheet in oven for 15 minutes, then remove from heat and cool before serving. Voila! Chocolaty-cookie goodness. Makes approximately 30-36 cookies. Yum!