5.31.2010

Bakin'

I have mad envy for people who can cook.  I mean, yeah, I can make stuff and not give myself food poisoning, but I'm not very creative at cooking, I'm not very adventurous and I'm not very good at it.  I have a few dishes I make on a regular basis, but that's about it.  But I'm getting the itch to try and teach myself some things.  And I've had an itch to bake.  The other night I did a google search in hopes of finding something that sounded tasty and involved chocolate.  After a little looking, I came across a recipe for Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Bread at this website.  So, in the spirit of some of the people I adore (Diane, Laura, Sandy, too many others to list), I'm going to show you what I did.

These are the ingredients you'll need to make the bread:


2 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed (or more, to taste)
1T baking powder
3/4t salt
1/2t cinnamon
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 large)
1 cup skim milk
3/4 cup creamy natural peanut butter w/ salt
1t vanilla extract
1/4 cup egg substitute (or 1 egg)
100g (3.5 oz) dark chocolate, chopped into small chunks



Oh, and one beer.



Mix all the dry ingredients (except the chocolate) together in a large bowl.


Take a swig.


Likewise, mix all the wet ingredients together in a large bowl.


Take a swig.


Pour the wet stuff into the dry stuff.



Take a swig.


Mix it all together.


Take a swig.


Add the chocolate.  (The recipe, I felt, didn't call for enough chocolate, so I upped it.  Instead of using a chocolate bar and breaking it into small pieces, I bought a bag of dark chocolate chips and I used half the bag.  I love chocolate!)


Take a swig.


Mix the chocolate in.


Take a swig.


Grease and flour up two 9X5 inch cake pans.  I bought a couple of aluminum ones.  The recipe makes two loaves and I only had one proper glass pan.


Bake for 45 to 50 minutes at 350 degrees.  They'll be ready if you can stick a toothpick in and it comes out clean.  This will be your end result.


Open another bottle to celebrate.


I have to tell you, the bread came out really good.  It's not as peanut buttery as I was hoping for, but it's tasty nonetheless.  Next time I might try upping the amount of peanut butter, or instead add peanut butter chips with the chocolate chips.

2 comments:

Joe in Philly said...

But the important question is: how was the beer?

Oooh...the word verification generated this word, which I am now claiming as my own: fabylla!

fabylla (adj.) Fabulous to the extreme; more wonderful than even chocolate chip cookies. "That party was so off the hook, it was fabylla!"

wcs said...

You could increase the amount of beer... ;)

I cook the same way with wine.