This week is my first Tuesdays With Dorie post and holy bananas this was a delicious way to start things off! One of the reasons I'm trying to taking my baking obsession more seriously is because it forces me to be patient. I've always been bad with patience in general, but it's gotten to a new extreme. I always want to go, go, go, and these baking projects are forcing me to pay attention to the little things again and to take my time. It's a really hard challenge since I can't even sit still for more than 15 minutes at a time anymore. This week's post is definitely a testament to my struggle with patience. And this was just banana bread.
I made a few adjustments to the recipes, just because of a lack of ingredients. We were out of dark rum, but there was plenty of Malibu in the apartment! I wasn't sure about the coconut flavor, but I didn't really notice it. We were also out of Nutmeg (my roommate made some pumpkin bread last week, so I'm pretty sure that's where it went). I know this is a big part of the recipe, but I had to substitute with cinnamon and cloves. They were all we had left in the spice cabinet. It still had a really nice flavor.
I was going to add extra bananas for a more intense flavor, but when I read the other Dorie blogger's experiences with their batter not cooking through I kept to using two small ones. I left the bread in the over for about an hour and fifteen minutes with the foil tent and then about another fifteen without. It was perfect: not gooey or undercooked at all. It was moist and soft and had a very distinct banana flavor. I'm glad there was more white than black because the chocolate flavor was almost too intense.
Now the part about the patience: I didn't want to bother buttering the pan thoroughly and just sprayed some cooking spray on it. Also, I didn't let the bread cool before I tried to take it out of the mold. Two huge mistakes that led to this:
If I had just taken my time and waited for all of that delicious smelling goodness to cool my loaf would not have broken into two very unattractive pieces. At least this gives a good visual of the marbling.
It all worked out in the end. The bottom half of the loaf which stuck to the pan stayed with me and soon after into my tummy, and the rest I cut up into bite size pieces that I took to a BBQ. All ended well in banana bread world, and I will try and remember more patience for next week's ice cream.
You can check out the recipe on Ashlee's blog,
http://www.ashleescooking.blogspot.com/, or in "Baking: From My Home to Yours" by Dorie Greenspan.
On a side note I also brought bluberry pasta salad with feta dressing (from eatingwell.com) and puppy chow to the cook-out. One girl had about 20 helpings of the pasta and my other friend exclaimed, "Wow-you're a really good cook!" That was one of the best compliments I've gotten considering back in college my idea of cooking dinner was defrosting frozen fries and microwaving Spaghettios
I'm a serial batter eater. Usually I taste a batter and think to myself, "mmm yummy". When I was making these cookies I was knocked out when I went for that first just-mixed lick. I have never been so surprised by a taste as I was with these cookies. I even semi-cussed out loud. And then I felt guilty for almost saying a bad word over such a wholesome treat. I had no idea the cinnamon would add such a kick. These are great peanut butter, oatmeal cookies with a decadent twist.
My mixer whizzing away...
Some Merlot, and the view from my kitchen just makes these cinnamon, peanut butter, oatmeal, suckers that much better!
This was surprisingly easy to get out of the pan with Dorie's warm towel suggestion and I think I did a pretty good job making my layers even! I agree with some of the other Tuesday With Dorie'ers that this was an incredibly hard recipe to photograph for the blog. It was so A. Melty. B. Sticky. and C. Irresistibly Lickable. You can find the recipe on this week's host, Amy's blog.
