da BOMB of banana breads

Our bookclub's pick this month, thanks to Renee, is A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg. For a number of years now I've been sporadically reading Molly's blog, Orangette. I have enjoyed her blog, and was excited to read the book. One local library only has it via audiobook, and the other one I'm number 15 or something on the list. I'm not a big book buyer, even if they are cheap at Costco. So I got it by audiobook and started listening to it Friday afternoon as I cleaned the kitchen & made Sabbath lunch.

Oh my. It's delightful. Molly talks of all sorts of food, and her life, and it's in such a personal way, I feel like she's right here talking with me about it all. I'm ready to pour over her recipes and start trying new things, she makes them sound so delicious. While listening on Friday, she spoke of Glenn's banana bread. Served with whipped cream.

I LOVE banana bread. It is the one sweet quick bread that I make most often. I enjoy zucchini, pumpkin, rhubarb, and other sweet quick breads, but banana bread is the one I get cravings for, the one that keeps coming to mind when I think of what to make for Sabbath morning breakfast, the one I really need to have.

And cream - cream is my friend. I LOVE cream. I've actually said that if I could eat cereal & cream for breakfast, all the better. And yes, I'll have some coffee with my cream, thank you. However, in order to try to lead a healthier lifestyle, I don't do this often.

But on Friday afternoon, Glenn's banana bread with candied ginger & chocolate chips, along with a healthy dose of fresh whipped cream, sounded absolutely scrumptious to me.

I had looked through Renee's copy of the book, and thought I'd remembered there was a recipe in there for it, but since I've got the audiobook, they skipped the recipes. Not helpful when this banana bread was calling my name. I also thought maybe I'd seen it on her blog once too. So I pulled up Orangette and sure enough, there it was.

We were having friends over for lunch on Sabbath, and I considered making it for dessert. But our friends can't eat dairy, and up until recently couldn't eat soy, and I didn't have enough flax seeds to make egg replacement, and no non-dairy/soy milk, so decided to skip it.

However, it came back to haunt me again today. We were getting together with people to picnic & play kickball. Bar desserts or quick breads are the less time intensive potluck foods. And usually the ones that are sure to be eaten. So I decided to make it.

FAN.TAS.TIC. And I forgot the walnuts (you have to have nuts in banana bread!), and it cooked for 20 minutes extra (somehow it took us 80 minutes to go to the gym & get gas, rather than the normal 45 minutes), and I didn't even eat it with whipped cream. And still, delicious bread! I got a number of compliments on it, and friends telling me they'd eaten at least 3 slices. Sadly, I came home with only 1 slice. And I'm out of candied ginger. (hmm, somewhere to ride my bike tomorrow - the grocery store to get some more... ah ha!)

At some point, I had found another banana bread recipe that had dried apricots in it. I had never tried it, but it sounded good, and I remembered this today - dried apricots seemed they would be a good fit in this bread. I doubled the recipe, and in one loaf I added some chopped up dried apricots - maybe 2/3 cup. I think I liked it even better.

So seriously, if you're looking for a no-fail banana bread, this is the one to try!

Glenn’s Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips and Candied Ginger
straight from Orangette
(vegan version substitutions appear in parentheses)

1 cup granulated sugar (for vegan version, use raw sugar)
1 large egg (or 1 ½ tsp Ener-G Egg Replacer plus 2 Tbs warm water, says Glenn)
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter (or ½ c non-hydrogenated margarine), at room temperature
2 ripe medium-size bananas
3 Tbs milk (or soy milk)
2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 cup chocolate chips [A.H. note: I used mini chocolate chips]
Small chunks of candied ginger, to taste [A.H. note: I used over 1 cup]
½ cup chopped walnuts, optional

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a 9- by 5-inch loaf pan with butter or cooking spray, and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream sugar, egg, and butter.
In a separate bowl, mash bananas; then mix with milk.
In another separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Add flour mixture to butter mixture in three parts, alternating with banana-milk mixture in two parts, stirring by hand until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips, ginger, and optional nuts.

Turn batter into loaf pan, smoothing top with the back of a spoon, and bake for one hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool for a few minutes; then remove bread from pan and cool on a wire rack.

Eat. Remember that I warned you it was fantastic!