Go Bananas

These bad boys have been staring at me for a week or so now, so I figured it was time to deal with them. Thinking that banana bread is too boring, I wanted to set my sights on something else that I don't normally make with rotting bananas. After a while of thinking and searching, I came up with a great idea: Banana Oatmeal bread. But here's the real clincher - I baked it in a bread machine that my mom gave me a few months ago. Alright, so its still not that original but lets be honest, what can you make with rotten bananas that's better than banana bread anyway? While the concept is the same, the way I arrived there is something new to me, so that counts as originality I'd say. I got the recipe out of the Bread Machine Magic book. Without further ado...

Here are my ingredients - or most of them anyway. Since baking this bread was a rather spur of the moment decision around 8:30 pm, I didn't quite have all of the ingredients on hand, so I took it upon myself to make a couple of minor adjustments. In addition to bread flour the recipe called for whole wheat flour, which I am fresh out of so I substituted all-purpose flour. A few less whole grains but hey, who's counting? It also called for 1 T of dry milk powder, which again, I don't normally keep stocked in my pantry. After consulting Google, I decided I really didn't need it. I was instructed to replace the powder with the amount of real milk that the powder would have made (in this case 4 T) and deduct that amount of water. Considering this recipe didn't call for any water, I just decided to wing it. I threw in about a tablespoon and a half of real milk and called it good. I added all of the ingredients to the loaf pan and let the machine do the rest. I didn't exactly account for the 4 and a half hour knead/rise/bake time on the machine, and if you remember, I didn't decide to bake it until 8:30. Good thing I'm used to being up this late writing papers!

Around 11:30 it started to smell like a bonafide bakery in here and at 12:42 am....Voila!

The instructions told me to let it cool for an hour before slicing into it. I gave it a good 20 minutes before I decided enough time had passed.

  

I slathered some butter on a piece and had myself a midnight snack. I was a little bit surprised by the taste, its not as sweet as a regular banana bread, it tastes much heartier. It was very good though, especially while it was still warm. I can see where this might make a good peanut butter sandwich or an even better banana french toast...

My bed awaits me.