Sarah: ICBC Bananas

Banana Nut Bread

2 1/2 cups sifted flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 stick ( 8 tablespoons) softened unsalted butter

2/3 cups sugar

2 large eggs

3 very ripe bananas

2/3 cup well-shaken buttermilk

1 cup toasted walnuts (put them in the oven at 350 for about 10 minutes)

1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter your loaf pan.

2. Stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg in a bowl.

3. In a separate bowl, beat together butter and sugar with a mixer on high until smooth, about 2 minutes. Reduce speed to medium, add eggs one at a time, beating till combined. Add bananas and mix till combined (the mixture will look curdled). Reduce speed and add flour mixture in 3 batches alternatively with the buttermilk, starting and ending with flour. Mix until smooth. Add nuts.

4. Put in loaf pan and bake until a toothpick comes out clean, 1 to 1 1/4 hours.

---REVIEW---

I've never made an official bread before, so I was really excited to make this, and even more excited when it came out well (I was worried as it is not a high altitude recipe). It even tastes awesome. Take that high altitude.

My first banana recipe was "Baked Banana Chips", which I actually made during the challenge week, but didn't take a picture of because they didn't come out. I didn't bake them for long enough, but feel free to give it a try yourself with this recipe.

Bread recipe from "Gourmet Today".

Carrie: ICBC Banana Cake

Jen W. chose bananas for this week's challenge, and since my latest obsession is FoodGawker, I headed there to find a banana recipe. I stumbled upon this Banana Cake recipe from My Kitchen Snippets, and decided that's what I would make. Recipe success! The cake was moist and delicious, despite my fears that my batter was too lumpy (which it probably was) and me being just shy of a cup of sugar. Oh well. Still tasty.

Recipe
2 sticks of butter
1 cup of sugar
4 eggs
4 Tbsp condensed milk
4 mashed bananas
1 tsp vanilla or banana essence
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350. Grease two 8" x 8" square baking pans. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and set aside. Beat butter and sugar on high until light and fluffy. Add in eggs one at a time and mix until smooth. Mix in mashed bananas, vanilla and condensed milk. Slowly add flour mixture and blend until smooth. Pour batter into baking pan and bake for 50 minutes or until golden brown and toothpick comes out clean. (I can't actually tell you if 50 minutes is how long I baked it, because Kevin put my banana cakes in the oven while I was plating dinner, and he didn't set the timer so I set it later but I'm not really sure if it was accurate because I don't know actually know how much time had already elapsed. I can tell you the cakes were in the oven for at least 30 minutes.)

Banana-Berry Smoothie

I found myself confronted with a problem of overripe strawberries this week. I was overly ambitious and bought too many strawberries, then found myself not eating them. So I threw together a smoothie and had it for breakfast. It was a great idea.

Banana-Berry Smoothie Recipe:
strawberries
banana
blueberries
vanilla yogurt
splash of cranberry-raspberry juice

Blend until desired thickness