Banana Bread - Or How I Hope I Didn't Poison Myself

Dear City Gay,

I was inspired by your determination to make zucchini bread, so I thought I would try my hand at the bread business. I didn't have any zukes on hand, nor did I even have a bread loaf pan, but that didn't matter. I wanted to be just like you, except without the zucchini.

Quite awhile ago, I had bananas that started going bad, so I decided to freeze them with the intent of making banana bread. I honestly don't know when exactly I put them in the freezer, but I decided to put them in the fridge to thaw yesterday. I admit the bananas looks really gross when I took them out of the fridge this evening.

I decided to use a simple, Paula Deen recipe. Even though wary of the bananas I was using, I forged ahead. (Seriously, when I peeled the bananas, it looked a bit more like fly larvae or some sort of pupa.) There really isn't much to the recipe, which I can't find online but really is a basic banana bread recipe, I promise.*

My recipe book told me to bake the bread for 50 minutes, and I trusted my oven to not burn the bread. I was a fool. I know that things bake faster in my oven, but I apparently forgot that. The bread wasn't exactly burned, but it was darker than I would have liked. I tried to take a picture, but it looked less than appetizing. I decided I should put a slice with bread in front of Brad. I think he has a look of disgust on his face.


The bread tastes fine, but I am afraid the bananas were too old. This is probably all in my head, but if I throw up in awhile, I'm totally throwing the bread out. I can't say I'm truly pleased with the final product, but it was a nice foray into the bread baking business.

Yours,
Country Gay

*For the readers, here is the recipe taken from Paula Deen's The Lady and Sons Too!
1/2 cup (one stick) butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon basking powder
3 ripe bananas

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan. In a mixing bowl, combine the butter and sugar; mix well. (You don't need a hand mixer; just use your muscles and a spoon.) Add the salt, eggs, vanilla, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and bananas, and mix well. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes.

By the way, be careful with your eggs. I decided to waste one and throw it on the floor. Egg shell can fly quite far.

Zucchini bread -- or -- WTF is wrong with me?

Yes, it's zucchini time already and a friend who grows it in her backyard was kind enough to lend me some for my SECOND attempt at this Paula Deen (God bless her) recipe.

The first time I tried to make this bread was last fall. The recipe makes two loaves and BOTH of them collapsed in the middle. It was a scarring experience and I didn't try again until this last week.

After a lot of reading and a lot of soul-searching, I discovered my original problem was that I had used a zucchini that was way too big. The problem with giant zucchini is it contains a lot of moisture, making the foundation of the bread somewhat fragile and, as a result, causes collapsing.

So this time, after grating the zucchini, I squeezed it with my hands before putting it in the mixing bowl to eliminate the excess moisture. Problem is, I wasn't using a very big zucchini and eliminated TOO MUCH moisture, resulting in dry bread. I also ran out of sugar, which left me a quarter cup shy of what I needed, so the cinnamon/nutmeg combo was a little stronger than it should have been.

Despite all of my problems, I will say, this recipe is DELICIOUS when all the right measurements of ingredients are present, so I refuse to give up.

I will make this bread again (before next year even) and I WILL PREVAIL, GOD DAMNIT!