When an hour really means 35 minutes...

Yesterday, after a 45-minute ordeal of washing a mountain of dishes as high as the Himalayas and cleaning a most disorderly kitchen I was happy for the space to attempt my first ever batch of Banana nut bread (without the nuts I realized). My sis and I were given a copious amount of bananas recently and they were going downhill at a very rapid pace and since I'm no monkey I decided we should make use of the bananas in a useful fashion vs. letting them go to waste. Mind you, I am no culinary goddess, but I figured, how hard can banana bread be? You just follow the recipe, right? I was wrong. For even recipes are sometimes wrong.

Here is the recipe I followed...

GENERIC BANANA BREAD (sounds delish doesn't it, lol?)

1 cup of butter

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

¼ tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

4 cups of flour

6 large bananas mashed

The directions were to mix butter and sugar. So I did. Add eggs one at a time. I did. Sift dry ingredients together and then add to creamed mixture. Roger that. Mash bananas and add to mixture last. Yes, mam. I followed all of these precisely, and it was the perfect batter, perfect consistency, perfect mashed bananas. I was so very proud. I ended up having a lot of batter so I filled 2 half a dozen muffin pans in addition to the glass pan as well, thought they’d come handy as snacks.

Now the directions said to cook the bread in the oven at 325 degrees for one hour. I had a moment then where my intuition said, “One hour, that can’t be right?” But alas, I did not listen to my sixth sense. I looked at other banana bread recipes online quickly and they directed the same amount of time. So putting aside my intuitive nudge I popped them in the oven, and put the first timer for 15 minutes for the muffin part of my project.

15 minutes later, the muffins were done. Took them out and looked at the main pan of the bread, it was evolving into a golden color rather swiftly. But then I thought, maybe that’s how it goes? The oven browns the edges before it cooks the middle?

Now I have estimated the banana bread would have been cooked just right between 30-35 minutes of cook-age (I just made that word up, haha) which was right around the time the alluring smell of cooking bread began to stop floating out of the oven. Would have being the key words to avoid disaster. I should have pulled the pan out during that time period but was busy chatting away with my mother on the phone, la dee dah. Why did I put my faith and trust into an internet recipe?!! And I should've realized that when you're on the west coast, cook time is MUCHO shorter. At about 42 minutes in I said to my mom on the phone, “Hmm, something smells kind of burning….Oh my gosh…MY BREAD!!”

This is what I pulled out of the oven…

All that time to prepare! All that pride, and all that hard elbow grease mashing the bananas and blending in the flour! All of my TLC put into a mixing bowl and pan, for what?!! I saved bananas so they could be burned alive by the evil oven monster. I am ashamed. So very ashamed.

I console myself that the bread would’ve been perfect if I had listened to the cooking fairy conscience that sat on my shoulder. She was a cute little sprite with spaghetti hair and green bell pepper shoes and she said, "Hark! Do not listen to the recipe Jess, for it lies, and makes false promises of beautiful tasty banana bread in an hour. But it is is wrong my friend, so very very wrong!" But I did not heed her warnings.

So now I make this vow... next time I will listen to you, oh dear cooking fairy, and I shall know the error of my ways...and hopefully the fruit of my labors! At least in edible terms!

In the meantime, I'm going to be reading this as my culinary go-to reference book...

*Note* Though maybe I shouldn't be taking cooking or dating tips from someone named "Jinx". Just an after thought!