Baby steps to being a domestic goddess...

If you read my earlier post, you know that I'm not big into baking.  I don't do it that often and I have virtually no experience with baking things from scratch, so this is an exciting day for me.  My first attempt at baking banana bread was SUCCESSFUL!  Granted the recipe is from my sister's Children's Cookbook but hey, baby steps, right?  With a few extra hints from Allison, like using an extra banana, I was able to put my way-too-ripe bananas to good use instead of throwing them out.

As I peeled the blackening bananas, their smell made me second guess myself.  "Are these rotten already?"  But I remember Allison using bananas that were farther gone than these babies.  So I went ahead with the recipe, mashing the bananas into an almost-fermented pulp.  The recipe told me to butter the pan, so I rubbed a stick of butter around the pan until it was coated with a nice thin layer of grease.  I considered using Pam, but I wasn't sure if it would taste the same and I didn't want to call Mom just to ask how to butter a pan.  I'll pose the question on here:  What is the correct way to butter a pan for baking?  I assume Pam works just fine, but we have the "Original" version.  On the side of the can it said there are butter and baking varieties, so I thought maybe the original kind would taste funny.  Josh's mom, Bernadette did show me how to properly flour a pan for baking a while back.  I guess it's probably the same technique, minus the flour.  Anyway, I mixed all the ingredients together in the proper order and correct quantities and stirred it until it was uniform.  Then I poured my batter into the pan, popped it into the oven and hoped for the best.

Fast-forward about 45 minutes and the apartment smells deliciously like bananas and cinnamon.  I open the oven and yay!  The bread looks like it should!  I stick a knife in the center to check if it's done, and it comes out with a good bit of batter on it so I put it back in the oven.  Two more knife checks and about fifteen minutes later and I take the fully-baked bread out of the oven to cool.  My pan might only be a $4 Wal-Mart brand, but the handles are perfect for picking it up with only one hand.  Small detail, yes, but the fewer parts of my body I risk burning in the oven the better.

After letting the loaf cool for a bit, it came out of the pan perfectly.  I let it cool a little longer while I washed the pan and put my other baking utensils in the dishwasher.  Once the kitchen looked as clean as it did before I started baking, I finally cut into the warm, moist loaf and tasted my final product (I prefer my banana bread warm with a bit of margarine on it).  YUM!  Adjusting and learning from experience is the best way to get better at something, so I made some mental notes for my next banana bread baking session.  Use four bananas instead of three and a half (part of one of the bananas was just too gross to use) and add more cinnamon than the recipe calls for.  Maybe even substitute some allspice for some of the cinnamon.