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Saturday, February 19, 2011

My Culinary Adventures: Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread

I kept putting off making banana bread for some reason or other.  As much as I love to bake, I feel like using the toaster oven is so much of a hassle and heats up the kitchen and makes me all sweaty.  I don't need to be any more sweaty than I already am some days.  El Negrito gets so hot!  

I'm not sure what it was that prompted me to finally make the bread, but I'm glad it did.  I baked it the day before Reconnect (in-service training) and was surprised at how easy it was to make a delicious, moist banana bread!  The only problem I had was with the top of the bread deflating after taking it out of the oven :(.  I saved some to give to my coworker who I was taking to Reconnect to eat on the long trip south, and the rest for my friends once we all saw each other again.  I have to admit, this bread was pretty bomb!!  Next time I think I will try to alter the cinnamon swirl so that it's not just a straight line across and looks like an actual swirl =/.


Recipe

For the bread:
3 over-ripe bananas, smashed up
1/3 cup melted butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
Dash of salt
1 1/2 cups flour

For the swirl:
1/3 cup sugar
1 Tbs cinnamon

  1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter and four a loaf pan.  Recipe based on 9x5 pan.  If using a different size, keep an eye on the bread when baking.
  2. Mix bananas, butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla together. sprinkle baking soda and salt around on top of the banana mixture. Then gently stir in flour. Be careful not to over-mix!
  3. In a small dish, mix together the 1/3 cup sugar and 1 Tbs cinnamon.
  4. Add 1/2 of the batter to the loaf pan and then sprinkle half, or a little more than half of the cinnamon-sugar mixture all over the batter in the pan. Add the rest of the batter, and then sprinkle the leftover cinnamon-sugar on top.
  5. Bake for 50-60 minutes, but remember, if you’re using a different-sized loaf pan, be careful and keep checking on it!

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