Banana bruffins

From the kitchen window...

Thursdays are my day off from work and the indication of a long long, LONG weekend for me. And breakfast being the starting point of my day, after getting dressed of course, was no question. This morning however had me waking up and craving for something homemade. On work and uni days, an efficient and time-saving breakfast is absolutely necessary so I often opt for cereal, yogurt and fruit. With the sun beaming down on me and free-time in hand, my brain switched from being "fast asleep" to "feeling creative and hungry" as I gazed out my kitchen window. 

Daydreaming...

Something I haven't had for long time, that's what I want to make. I love trying new recipes but there are times when one desperately wants something comforting and convenient to make - things I've tested before and are familiar really. My eyes landed on two overripe bananas hanging on the arm of my fruit bowl. Banana bread, I thought, now that's what I want.

Google search + allrecipes.com

That's how I usually roll when it comes to cooking - like I said before, cookery books are often for gazing at and admiring the quality of the pictures rather than to be used as my blueprints for cooking in my house. I knew exactly which recipe I wanted - I'd tried it many times and it's never failed me. Banana Banana Bread - a recipe created by Shelley Albeluhn (2000), a contributor to allrecipes.com's dazzling archive of fun and fresh recipes. Her recipe yields approximately 12 servings or one big loaf which, is indeed a nice and appropriate amount, was a bit too much for my one stomach - I didn't want to end up eating banana bread for one whole week! Also I didn't have enough bananas for that amount anyway - time to give the recipe a little twist and alteration.

Let the fun begin!

To make the banana bread, Albeluhn (2000) asks for the following - note that the amount has been halved because that's all I wanted, so do double it if you want the original amount:

The List

• 1 cup / 125g all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp / 2g bicarbonate of soda
• 1/8 tsp / 0.8g salt
• 1/4 cup / 55g butter
• 1/4 cup and 2 tbsp / 55g brown sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup and 3 tbsp / 260g mashed overripe bananas

Simple isn't it? Just some common kitchen essentials and, the secret, overripe bananas. In terms of equipment, I had three bowls, a set of measuring spoons, one measuring cup, scales, a potato masher, a muffin tin and liners, wooden spoon and, my favorite and critical weapon tool, a rubber spatula. I had both the scales and measuring cup only because the side of my measuring cup kind of melted (don't ask me, I don't know what happened but it's slowly dying - will have to replace it soon :(  so I can't see all the numbers properly. So I had to rely on the scales for some of the measurements e.g. the amount of flour.

At work...

To start off, preheat the oven to 175°C mix together in a bowl with the wooden spoon the flour, bicarb. of soda and salt. Since I had a muffin tin and liners, I didn't grease a loaf pan (I think it would be  7" or 9") like the recipe asked; do this if you want to instead of my way. In another bowl, cream together the brown sugar and butter - you're supposed to use an electric beater but I didn't have one so I used my wooden spoon instead; do use the beater if you have one! Mash the bananas in the remaining bowl using the potato masher and alternatively with a fork if you don't have one.

 Pour the mashed bananas into the creamed brown sugar and butter as well as the beaten egg and mix with the wooden spoon. Thereafter pour the banana mixture into the flour mixture and stir only to moisten - otherwise your banana bread will be dry and that would be very sad (Albeluhn, 2000). 

Finishing touches -- dried oats and desiccated coconut flakes

You can then pour the mixture into the muffin liners in the muffin tin or the prepared loaf pan using the wooden spoon. I didn't want to make a mess so I poured my mixture into the measuring cup and used that to pour the mixture into the muffin liners; I scraped every last bit of it into the liners using my rubber spatula to avoid wasting. The reason why I used muffin liners was that I didn't have a small enough loaf pan to accommodate for the amount of mixture I'd made - you don't want a huge pan for a small amount of mixture as your banana bread will come out very flat (that's happened to me before!).\ I was technically making banana muffins but as the recipe is for banana bread, I have renamed my muffins banana bruffins in honor of the two kinds. To give it an additional twist and a bit of crunch, I added some dried oats and desiccated coconut flakes on top of each muffin - I even did two 50/50 ones where half was covered in dried oats and the other half in coconut flakes.

Before...

I popped mine in the oven for around 35 minutes seeing as 1) I only made half of the original amount and 2) I made mine into muffins so there was a bigger surface area to volume and hence would require a smaller amount of time to bake (thank you year 9 science). When my flat began to smell strongly of freshly baked banana bruffins and the alarm on my oven began to ring, I knew they were done :)

After...

So, after a long but fun and relaxing one hour, my breakfast was finally complete. The bruffins should be moist and slightly bouncy (not the best way to describe the texture but hey you get the point), and the top should be crunchy and golden (yum!). Good to eat and to share with people you love/ know/ feel like treating/ want to use as guinea pigs for future kitchen experiments (muahahaha).

Freshly baked - what could be better, seriously?

A day off work for everyone, in my opinion, calls for an indulgent way to start the day. It doesn't mean that it averts me from doing the cleaning and washing up though (meh... -___-) but, at least it gets you going on the right foot right? :)

A beautiful mess :)

Bibliography

Albeluhn, S (2000) Banana Banana Bread [online]. Available at: <http://allrecipes.com> [Accessed 12 September 2013].