the tale of the sad banana bread.

On my last trip to Penzey's Spices, I was very excited to happen upon a bag of candied ginger. I had recently read Orangette's recipe for Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips and Candied Ginger and with the bunch of bananas that i had sitting on my counter at home, decided that this was the perfect thing to make over this past weekend. I bought that lovely bag of ginger and it waited patiently for me in the cupboard until I could finally get to baking. And bake I did. My Sunday night was filled with cooking both the banana bread and a Kale, Onion and Gruyere Panade (also from the lovely Orangette... you'll be seeing a lot of her recipes in the coming days because she is fabulous).


The bread started out all well and good. I love taking my lovely Kitchenaid mixer for a spin and the batter came together great. Thick and shiny and goopey loveliness. I prepped the pan, squished it in and popped it in the oven.


An hour later and peaked and and it was nice and golden brown and delicious looking. I did the toothpick test and thing came out clean, minus the gooey chocolate chip I hit, things seemed all normal. But no. I turned the bread out of the pan to cool and the was a little crackage... then a hole began to form. A gigantic chasm in the center of my lovely bread.


I decided that all would be okay, and after dinner cut into the still slightly warm bread. The first slice was fine and my husband throughly enjoyed it... it was after that first piece where it gets messy. The wonderful goopey dough wanted to hang around and it did, right in the center of my loaf. Raw, it was, and I was not happy. The next evening was filled with emergency procedures to fix the raw-ness. Another hour in the oven at a low temperature helped a little, but also made the outside a bit dry. Nothing a bit of whipped cream can't fit, I suppose. But still, not a happy day in my kitchen.

If you are interested in having a go (and i wish you more luck than i had) at this fabulous recipe... and it is fabulous, the ginger adding a very nice kick to the bread... find it here:
http://orangette.blogspot.com/2004/12/
mussels-wine-and-excuse-to-eat-whipped.html

And may your banana bread tale be a happy one.