Baking Follies

I have a massive pregnancy sweet tooth. I try to keep it in check and only indulge in sweets a few times a week. But wouldn't you know, we just so happened to have three overly ripe bananas sitting on our counter, and banana bread just happens to be one of my favorites!

Clearly, the only just and fair thing to do was make some banana bread to serve those ripe bananas justice. Justice straight to my belly.

I found this recipe on Pinterest and it had over 1,000 repins, so I figured it had to be pretty decent. Also, it had just a few ingredients, which I like. Double also, it's a pretty sweet blog that I now follow called Domestic Superhero. #winning

Anyway, I mentioned here about how I'm an absolutely terrible baker! I hate following recipes exactly, and since baking is a chemistry, one must follow it just so. But dangit if I didn't want some banana bread, and I had everything I needed to make it already (kinda) and the justice for the bananas, y'all!

I thus embarked on my baking adventure. First, I lined up everything I would need to put it together.

That shot forgot the eggs, and eggs are definitely involved in all baking adventures. So I grabbed the eggs, and started to mash up the bananas. When your bananas are super ripe, it's easy enough to smush them with a fork - no need to bust out the food processor! Yessssss, fewer dishes to deal with.

I got my smushy banana on, then proceeded to stir together the butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla into the mixture. An optional ingredient was nuts, and my husband and I just happen to be nuts for nuts, especially walnuts, so I chopped up some of those, getting them ready for their grande debut. (Walnuts are a great, healthy fat source! And really complement the flavor of banana well. Go ahead, add some to your next batch of banana bread and see how delicious it is!)

After mixing in the salt, I realized the recipe called for baking SODA and I had baking POWDER. Oops. Oh well, it was close enough! So then I realized I couldn't find my teaspoon - only my tablespoon. Meh! So I added a not-quite-full-tablespoon of baking powder, which was not part of the deal. Then the flour and walnuts. I didn't even measure both of those... After my soda/powder debacle, I was quickly growing tired of this baking nonsense. Baking fail.

It was looking and smelling good at this point, and looked like most banana bread batters I've seen before despite my lack of measuring. However, my next folly was that I didn't have a friggin bread pan! Since I don't bake, I've never bought one and didn't put one on my wedding registry. I DID put a sweet set of Pyrex baking dishes though said registry though, so I I figured that would do. Low and behold, the not so perfect, slightly altered, non measured and non bread pan banana bread!

I put that bad boy in the oven and stared down the batter encrusted bowl... Now, I *know* pregnant women shouldn't eat raw dough because of the eggs in it. But this is per the FDA, the same federal bureaucracy who tells pregnant women diet soda is "safe" to drink throughout their pregnancies (UMMMM, it's not safe to drink, ever) and I had just got the eggs and heck they're pasteurized anyway, and my belly was screaming JUSTICE PAIGE JUSTICE!!! So to hell with the FDA. I licked that bowl CLEAN. And it was amazing.

The bread itself was equally amazing. Voila! Le pain est fini!

In all seriousness though, this bread was fantastic, it was easy to put together and forgiving of my inability to properly bake, and Domestic Superhero is a pretty fun read too.