banana bread

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter  
3/4 cup brown sugar* (the original recipe, which I think came from AllRecipes.com, calls for brown sugar, but brown sugar is hard to come by in the DR so I use raw cane sugar. You could probably even use regular white sugar if that's all you have.)
2 eggs
3 or 4 mashed overripe bananas

I like to bake on Sunday evenings and bring in fresh baked goods on Monday morning! My co-workers like it too :) Banana bread is great because you feel like you are a hero for not wasting nasty bananas. But I really like banana bread so sometimes I just go out and buy brown bananas for this exact purpose.

The bananas should basically be straight-up nasty looking. If your bananas reach this nasty stage and you don't feel like making banana bread yet, you can freeze them and then thaw them later. (By the way, I like taking pictures of all the ingredients for the blog, but also I always set everything out before I start making something to make sure I have everything! It's super frustrating if you get halfway through a recipe and realize you're out of eggs.)

If your butter is in the fridge, set it out and let it get to room temperature before you start baking. Microwaving it makes recipes turn out a little weird.

Anyway, measure out the dry ingredients except for the sugar and mix them up in a bowl. (I spaced out this time and mixed the sugar in with everything else and it worked out okay though.) Cream together the butter and the sugar in a different bowl, and add the eggs and bananas (mashed with a fork). Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones and mix it with a fork enough to moisten everything, but don't over-stir it or you'll eff it all up!! Just kidding, but it will make the bread more tough. Not like in a Joan Jett way, but just like not quite as tasty.

Pour your batter into a lightly greased pan of some sort. (This might make two loaf pan-sized loaves.) I use this Dutch oven, because I don't have a real oven. Tip: sprinkle a little sugar on top of the batter! It'll give your bread a shiny, delicious top. If you are using a Dutch oven, which you are probably not, cook this on a low-ish flame for like half an hour. If you are using a real oven, the original recipe calls for 60 minutes at 350 degrees.

Are you... curious about my Dutch oven?

 

As you can see, it's round with a hole in the middle, so everything I make with it looks like a Bundt cake! Or a wreath! It fits over a gas stove burner and it directs the heat so it bakes evenly. Pretty awesome! There are also Dutch ovens for camping, which are basically just cast iron pots with lids that you can stick directly into coals to bake with.

 

Mmm, it's done when it's golden-brown and a toothpick (or fork, because who the hell has toothpicks?) comes out clean!