Things I dislike: plug-ins that screw up my website, having to get my wisdom teeth out, waking up tired, mushy bananas. Yuck yuck and double yuck.
Things I like: dancing around to this video, late-night walks around the sparkling city, getting inspiration for my NaNo novel, repurposing mushy bananas into something magical.
This is Real Life people, and it’s happening all the time. No more nestling up in the high school cocoon of comfort. It’s the time for strangers telling you they’re going to cut your teeth in half, long walks during which you talk about your feelings, and phone calls from your Mom instead of hugs. It’s also the time for watching too much tv and eating as many sea-salt sprinkled chocolate chip cookies as you want, so I guess it’s okay. (Don’t worry Mom, I didn’t eat that many.)
You know what else Real Life means? It means you should learn to make banana bread. Why? I don’t know. It seems like a grown-up skill. It seems like you’re saying “Look at me! I can use ingredients up! I am not wasteful. I am resourceful.” Also banana bread is delicious, so you might just want to put it in your mouth. Who am I to question your motives?
Start with the ugliest bananas you can find. Ugly is a prerequisite. These were mine.
Eww! So ugly!
For this banana bread, I turned to my very favourite baker, Joy. She had several banana bread recipes on her site, but I was most drawn to her delicious-looking Peanut Butter Banana Bread, and I’m so glad I chose it! I think the combo of bananas, peanut butter and yogurt makes this bread amazingly moist and incredibly yummy.
Peanut Butter Banana Bread
Adapted from Joy the Baker
Makes a 9×5 loaf (many happy servings of breakfast!)
- 1 1/2 cups mashed (ugly) bananas [my 2 ugly bananas made about 1 1/4 cups, I added a little extra yogurt]
- 1/3 cup plain yogurt
- 1/3 cup smooth peanut butter
- 3 tablespoons butter, melted
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Before anything else, preheat the oven to 350 and grease & flour your loaf pan.
Start by whisking together the mashed bananas, yogurt, peanut butter, and melted butter. Mix well, so that you get a fairly uniform mixture. Add the eggs and sugar, and whisk the mixture together.
In a separate, larger bowl, mix the flour, spices, baking soda and salt. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and fold together until fully combined. Pour into the prepared loaf pan.
Bake for 55-75 minutes, or until a knife/skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Joy says 55-65 minutes, but in my oven it took about 75 for the bread to be fully baked in the center. Just monitor it in your oven, and see what works best for you.
Let it cool, remove by running a butter knife around the edges and pop your loaf out! Eat immediately with a little butter, jam, or peanut butter. :)
And enjoy! Bon appetit!
Do you like banana bread? Do you like bananas at all? Let me know what your favourite recipe is, or if you like the look of this one!
xo,
