Banana Pancakes

 

Apologies for the absence, readers.  Don't think I haven't been cooking--I have.  I just haven't had time for the blogging part of the cooking blog.  Here's how my days have been breaking down lately:

Work: 12 hours

Sleep: 8 hours (ha!) 

"Commuting" to work: 1 hour

Morning routine: 1 hour 

So that leaves about 2 hours in the day for the rest of life (cooking dinner, cleaning, laundry, collapsing on the couch, email, facebook...)  Yeah, blogging hasn't been fitting in too well lately.  Luckily there are Sundays, when I do all that stuff that I neglect during the week (which would be most of that list, minus the email & facebook, which I can't seem to wean myself off of.)

Sundays are also a great time for pancakes, which is what this post is all about.  Banana pancakes, specifically.   I always have overripe bananas kicking around, because when I buy a bunch I will only eat the first 3 or 4.  If I were smarter I would just buy 3 or 4 bananas at a time, but alas, I am not.  98% of the time the overripe bananas become banana bread, so I was extremely happy to stumble upon an alternate overripe banana recipe in People magazine last month.  I made them last Sunday with half of the bad bananas I had sticking around, and then made them again today since the other half of the bad bananas were really really really bad bananas at this point.  Although the smell and texture of overripe bananas makes me a little queasy, as soon as you add flour and sugar and eggs and heat, somehow it's all good.  In fact, it's all great.  I don't know how that works, but it does.  The bananas keep these pancakes amazingly moist, not at all dry and bready.  It also somehow lubricates the whole wheat flour, which this recipe uses, so again, nice and moist, not like the hockey puck pancakes that my friend Shannon described when someone else cooked her whole wheat pancakes.

Last weekend I made some blueberry sauce to go with my banana pancakes, because I was out of maple syrup.  I just took a couple of cups of frozen blueberries (though fresh would work, I just happen to have lots in my freezer), and cooked them in a sauce pan until they were unfrozen and mushy, then added just enough light brown sugar (though any sweetener would do), to make it sweet and syrupy.  While I liked the banana pancakes with the blueberry sauce, I actually preferred them with straight up maple syrup.  But don't get me wrong, the blueberry sauce was excellent (as a bonus, I was inspired to brush my teeth immediately after eating, which doesn't often happen on Sundays!)  I ate most of it out of the pan, actually, since I made way too much.  I think I will try it again with vanilla ice cream, or perhaps blueberry shortcake, instead of strawberry...?  Things to try.  But in the meantime, try these:

 Blueberry sauce, delicious right from the pan.

Whole Wheat Banana Pancakes (From People Magazine)

Serves 2-4, depending on your appetites

* 1 cup of whole wheat flour (you can obviously use white, if you prefer or if that's all you have)

* 1 Tablespoon white sugar

* 2 teaspoons baking powder

* 1 healthy dash of nutmeg

* 2 healthy dashes of cinnamon

* 1/4 teaspoon salt

* 2 ripe to overripe bananas, mashed

* 1 egg, beaten

* 1 cup of milk

* 2 Tablespoons of vegetable or canola oil

* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

* Sliced bananas and/or strawberries, to top (optional)

1. Mix dry ingredients in a small bowl

2. In a larger mixing bowl, mash bananas.  If your bananas aren't so ripe they're soggy you may have lumps, but fear not, those taste good.  Mix in egg, milk, oil, and vanilla.  

3. Add dry ingredients to the wet, and stir in until it's all moistened.  It's okay if the batter is lumpy.  If the batter seems too thick to you (mine did), thin with about a tablespoon of milk.

4. Heat a griddle or frying pan and oil or butter lightly over medium heat.  When a drop of water will sizzle on the hot pan, add approximately 1/3 cup of batter.  Cook until the edges are dry and there are lots of bubbles on the surface of the pancake.  Flip, continue cooking for a minute or two until golden brown.  Serves with sliced fruit, if desired, and lots of maple syrup (you don't want these to be too healthy, after all!)  Enjoy!

This is what your pancake looks like when it's ready to flip.  You probably 

already know this, but for the pancake neophytes out there, now you know, too.

My Signature Recipe: Chocolate Chip Banana Bread.

Tonight I am baking what I consider my signature recipe, Chocolate Chip Banana Bread. I eat a lot of bananas, but when I can't keep up with the bunches (since I only like them when they're slightly under-ripe), they become banana bread. I've tried several recipes, but I've decided that the easiest/my favorite is one that I have adapted from one of my go-to books for easy recipes: Better Homes & Gardens red plaid cookbook (I have the 12th edition).

A random note here: I've always been confused by the term "adapted" when people (bloggers & food writers, essentially) say they've adapted something from such and such a source. Do they mean that they've made changes to a recipe, or that it's the same recipe from whatever source it's "adapted" from, and adapted is just a nice way of saying that it's someone else's recipe? If anyone could clear this up for me, I'd be most grateful. Anyway, just to make things clear, when I say adapted, I mean that I've tweaked it a little, but it's more or less the same recipe.

My adaptations to this recipe essentially include making it 1.5x bigger so that it fits perfectly in a standard bundt ban, since I am obsessed with them (see profile). I also add oats, bump up the spices, replace some of the oil with applesauce, and then add chocolate chips, because that's what makes it mm mm good. However, if you want the real Better Homes & Gardens recipe, it can be found here.

Banana Bread (Adapted from Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook, 12th Edition)

* 3 cups flour (I often do a 2:1 combo of all-purpose and whole wheat, or sometimes a 1.5:1:0.5 combo of all-purpose, wheat, and oats)
* 2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
* 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
* 3 eggs, beaten
* About 2 cups overripe mashed bananas, which is 5 or so large bananas. I never actually measure, and it always seems to work out fine.
* 1 1/2 cups sugar
* 3/4 cup vegetable oil or 1/2 cup oil and 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
* Your favorite chocolate chips in whatever quantity you like. (I like the jumbo Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet chips, and Hershey's Special Dark chocolate chip are good, too. Sometimes I do a combo of dark and semi-sweet, depending on what's in my pantry. I probably use about a cup of chocolate chips, but this is one addition you can adjust to suit your tastes.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease (with softened butter or PAM) a standard bundt pan. (These also make good muffins, so if that's more your style, grease some muffin tins)

2. In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients (flour(s) through nutmeg). Whisk together lightly and make a well in the center. In a medium bowl, mix together eggs, bananas, sugar and oil or oil/applesauce.

3. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir together lightly until just combined. The batter can be lumpy. Gently fold in chocolate chips. Pour batter into prepared pan.

4. Bake for 55-65 minutes (20-25 minutes for muffins), or until a wooden toothpick or skewer inserted in the middle of the ring comes out clean.  The top should be golden brown and will probably be cracked in the middle. Remove  the bread from the oven and cool for at least 15 or 20 minutes before removing it from pan. To remove from pan, invert a plate or cake stand over the bundt pan and flip the plate and the pan over together.

Notice the golden brown crust, slightly cracked, and skewer used to test the banana bread.  It came out clean, which meant that the bread was ready to come out of the oven.

Now, this is where BH & G and I really differ. They say to cool the bread completely and then wrap and store overnight before serving. While this will allow the cake to firm up and make it easier to slice, I absolutely cannot resist eating at least one slice when it's still warm from the oven. I will concede, however, that it does crumble quite a bit when it's still warm from the oven, but if I'm just baking it for me, I say, who cares? In any case, you should let it cool completely before wrapping with saran wrap or aluminum foil, though I always suggest heating it up before enjoying a slice. When I'm eating it for breakfast then I just zap it in the microwave for about 20 seconds, but when I pack some for lunch I leave it in a tupperware on the dashboard of my truck all morning so that by noon the bread is warm and moist and the chocolate chips are starting to melt. Delicious! And on that note, I think I am going to go eat a slice.

Okay, so the edges are a little rough when it's hot from the oven.
By tomorrow morning it will slice nicely, and be just as yummy.