Nut-free Banana Bread
Nut Free Banana Bread
This nut free banana bread has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My mom would make it all the time when I was little, but not often enough apparently. I’m told ( I don’t remember doing this, but I believe it) that I wanted banana bread badly one week, but the bananas were not ripe enough. At some point someone must have told me that bananas ripen more quickly in dark places because I hid a few under my bed. Genius, no? But I lacked follow through, forgot they were there, and my mom found them once they way too ripe.
You have to bake this bread to understand my desperation as a child. As an adult I haven’t resorted to hiding bananas around the house to force them to ripen, but if I want to make the bread and the bananas are still too fresh, put the peeled bananas in a large bowl, add lemon juice, then mash them. It gets the bananas to the right consistency. I have eaten it every morning for breakfast this week and it takes a lot of restraint not to eat it for a snack, for dessert after lunch, for dessert after dinner, for a midnight snack….I don’t know where my mom got the recipe for this bread, but it is perfect and the aroma while it is baking is intoxicating. Thanks for passing it on, Mom! Once it is out of the oven I am like one of these little kids. I have to distract myself in order not to eat it!
Without further ado, the recipe.
Banana Bread a la Mother Rooney
Baking time 60-70 minutes Bake at 325
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas (about three large ones)
3/4 C vegetable oil
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsps vanilla
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
Grease and flour a pan, set aside. Mix sugar, bananas, oil, eggs and vanilla in a large bowl.
Sift the baking powder, soda and flour together, then add to the other mix. Pour into a loaf pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Let it cool for 10 minutes, then loosen the sides of the loaf from the pan and remove from pan. Let the bread cool completely before slicing or storing. THIS is the hardest step by far. Maybe a couple small pieces from the bottom of the loaf won’t be noticed if they go missing….
Enjoy and happy October!
Martin Seay says:
October 3rd, 2009 at 10:41 am
This is not exactly the version of the Beth-Rooney-banana-thief story that I have heard. In the version I heard, you were more calculating, less experimental. Rather than putting the bananas under the bed because they might ripen faster in the dark, so hid them to PREVENT THEM FROM BEING USED FOR SOMETHING ELSE — you knew that past a certain stage of ripeness, bananas can’t be used for anything BUT banana bread, and your gambit was to keep them under wraps until they arrived at that stage.
But that’s not the point. The point, Beth, is that you have a banana bread problem. I’m sorry to have to say it in front of all these people, but there you go. The sooner you admit it to yourself, the sooner you can begin your journey out of the hell you’ve been living in and along the road to recovery. It won’t be easy, but you have the support of your friends and family . . . many of whom face the same daily struggle that you do. Let’s all be strong. Let’s drag the black-skinned fruit of shame out from under the bed and into the light. You are a banana-bread fiend, Beth Rooney, conscienceless and degenerate — but we love you, and we want you to get better.