I hate bread. I love cake. I love banana bread. For all of you logical thinkers playing along at home this is a clear indicator that banana bread must truly be cake. No doubt!
I love to bake or at least I think I do. It’s been so long since I’ve cooked anything without instant written on the package that I’m not entirely sure I remember if it’s truly enjoyable or just a manifestation of my imagination. It was time to rediscover baking. I know I was scared too, but as a spoiler alert no bakers or non-bakers were hurt during the baking process.
In the spirit of being honest with myself and admiring that banana bread is indeed dessert, i.e. cake, and starting off slow to allow my revirginized baking self re-enter the world of baking slowly, I found a recipe from “Gooseberry Patch Quick and Easy Christmas” called “Busy Morning Banana Bread (ah, the lies we tell ourselves). that actually uses a yellow cake mix as part of the ingredients.
You did notice the quick and easy part of the title right. If you haven’t ever seen the Gooseberry Patch books they are for sale at Cracker Barrel and if you aren’t familiar with Cracker Barrel than I’m not sure I can help you. The Gooseberry Patch books are a bit addictive and fascinating. Each recipe has a memory quoted from the author of each recipe. The darn things either have me in sentimental tears or nostalgic for things I’ve never even experienced. As you can imagine Gray hates the damn things, but he does like to eat a lot and is still pretty found of me, thank goodness, that he still bought me the book.
We did hit a little snag after I poured the batter into the pans – the recipe claims it makes two (9X5 loaves), but no it makes two itty bitty loafs – and yes, they were the right sized pans. I had Gray measure with a measuring tape (ah, the advantages of marriage). So I needed to a do a little arranging to get equal amounts of batter in each pan.
Once this was accomplished – I must say the batter was delicious 🙂
The results of my baking adventure were somewhat mixed. Easy and quick – yes! Delicious – you bet. Easy to cut and send leftovers to work with Gray – uh, no not really. I think the problem might have been my choice of cake mix. I suspect that getting the extra moist cake mix was probably not the best plan when you are making “bread.”
Fortunately the fact that it melted long before it reached your mouth didn’t cause it to lose taste. In face, Gray ate every last bit of what I gave him, which is actually rare. He is a surprisingly picky eater, but not in the way you might think. Screw home cooked, by scratch meals, if it’s not processed or sold on the streets of Thailand and likely to give him food poisoning he really might not eat it, but more on this oddity later.
Overall I recommend this recipe – it’s fast, it’s easy, and even Gray will eat it – happily. I suspect I’ll make it again, but next time, no extra moist cake mix. I’ll keep you posted on the outcome. In the meantime just be proud of me for making something that required the oven (makes me happy).
