This morning I woke up with the need to bake. I needed something I could bake, from what I had in the house, serious dilemma, because there is NO BUTTER in my house! I know, Paula Deen would be shocked. Honestly, I'm shocked too. I've been trying to be better about baking for no one other than my family, we don't need the sweets. So when I ran out of butter earlier in the week, I thought nothing of it. But this morning it was a serious impairment to my desires to bake. After a thorough search of the cupboards and icebox, I found a stash of frozen bananas. Luckily I had buttermilk hanging out in the fridge, so I had a plan.
Out came one of my favorite baking cookbooks The Grand Central Baking Book. I got it for myself two years ago for Christmas and have already found some favorites: Bread Pudding Muffins, Classic Buttery Shortbread (this used the remaining cup of butter on Sunday), Mushroom & Root Vegetable Pot Pie, Raspberry Crumble Tart, and of course today's recipe, Banana Bread.
When you decide to make banana bread, or at least this one, you'll need to set aside some time, precisely 2 hours. It takes 90 minutes to bake and when you add in prep time, 2 hours is a good estimate. I have also learned through many late nights reading cookbooks, that having buttermilk on hand is a good idea. There are ways to substitute, however, nothing really compares with the real thing. Today I added coconut to my bread, and covered the top in chopped walnuts. As I said, I was searching for ingredients, and this is what I had on hand.
Hopefully my boys will enjoy their after school snack!
