nutella banana bread

It’s no secret (to those who know me, anyway) that I’m a math & science person at heart. Numbers speak to me, process comforts me, and exactness is a standard I treasure. I think that’s how I got into baking in the first place — it’s all math and science. Precise quantities and timing and chemical reactions. I’ve always felt comfortable with a reliable recipe, as it gives me confidence that I’ll be able to replicate the outcome (assuming my oven isn’t a total pile of poo that day). It’s a recent development that I’ve ventured into cooking, into playing with flavors, and into just… winging it. It’s part of this long-term project I have to loosen up more as a person, and has been accompanied by immersing myself in the arts, and talking about my feelings, and sometimes being late to parties, and wearing mismatched socks, and dripping egg yolk down the front of my newest blouse…

So, the other day, I was making banana bread, which is kind of an old stand-by “I am making this SOLELY for the purpose of not having my kitchen smell like rotting food” project. I had my own recipe, but I apparently hadn’t had any coffee or meth or ATP that day so halfway through I realized I had been arbitrarily pulling ingredient quantities from like three different recipes. All of which made different numbers of loaves.

…

Oh boy.

A few minutes of winging it and about an hour of baking time later, I had the best damn banana bread I had ever tasted. And then I made it two more times and it was still the best. So… here you go. A loaf of personal-development banana bread.

Here’s to having NO IDEA what you’re doing sometimes.

– L

Recipe: nutella banana bread

• 5 very ripe bananas
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup nutella

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and line a loaf pan with parchment.
2. In a large bowl, mash the bananas. Do it with your hands. It’s fun.
3. Whisk in butter, eggs, and brown sugar.
4. In a separate bowl, mix together baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and flour. Add to wet mixture and mix until incorporated.
5. Pour batter into prepared pan. Drop nutella on top of the batter and swirl with a knife to distribute it a little more evenly across the top and to marble it a little into the batter.
6. Bake for about 1 hour, or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean (or, only covered in nutella).