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Saturday, April 26, 2008

Like a brick

On Friday morning I ate the last of my cereal, so I decided it would be the perfect time to make banana bread with the browning bananas. I could eat it for breakfast Saturday morning with my tea.

So after work yesterday I changed into comfy clothes and threw on Grammy's apron. Earlier in the day I had pulled up BerryBird's Basic Banana Bread recipe and copied it down on a piece paper I pulled from the recycling bin under my desk. No sense in wasting a new piece by printing it out, right?

I mixed everything up, poured it into a big bread pan, and licked the bowl. I even felt a little bit proud of myself, since I almost never cook or bake. Soon the house began to smell heavenly. About 10 minutes before it was supposed to be done, I peaked in at it (why on earth doesn't my oven have a window in the door?).

The color looked good, so I pulled it out. The knife came out clean, so I turned off the oven and dumped the loaf onto the cooling rack. But clearly something had gone wrong. The loaf had not risen at all. I examined the recipe. I had most definitely followed it properly. What had happened? When it cooled enough to eat, I sampled. It tasted fine but felt like a bowling ball in my stomach.

It made a fine breakfast this morning, reheated with butter in the microwave. As soon as I turned on my laptop I headed back over to BerryBird's site. Ah-hah!

Baking soda. The missing ingredient. Perhaps I should have printed the recipe after all.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whoops! Glad it still tasted good, though!

Coffeypot said...

Cooking? Baking? What is this strange thing you speak of? I thought all you had to do to eat banana bread was unwrap it.

BerryBird said...

My guess was going to be that either your baking soda or powder had gone bad. You know, that it was like 10 years old because you don't bake very often? I have had that happen myself. But leaving it right out will do the trick, too. Tasty is all that matters.

jo(e) said...

I'm laughing because that is sooo like something I would do.

Mary Stebbins Taitt said...

Didn't you/she just leave it out?

I hope you are able to EAT it.

Baking and cooking do have their shortcomings, but the more you do it, the better you get at it.

You also learn to be a bit of a gourmand on occasion instead of a gourmet.

a/k/a Nadine said...

Never fear; I ate the whole loaf.

halloweenlover said...

Too funny! I love banana bread, I may have to try that recipe this week!

Thanks for the congrats!