Banana Bread

posted on: Tuesday, November 29, 2011


I would much rather eat a juicy mango or a tooth achingly sweet pineapple than a banana, but both mangos and pineapple take a full 15 seconds longer to peel so bananas end up being my fruit of choice. It 100% helps that we now live in a place where bananas taste AWESOME.

I really hope one day you get the chance to experience a ripened banana from the tree, in fact go for an apple-banana the best kind there is.

In the U.S I used to make banana bread pretty often. Here, it's a different story. Yesterday Christian bought 15 bananas and in less than 24 hours they are all gone. The kids pretty much snack on them all day long, in fact so do the adults, and if we're not careful the monkeys come and steal some too.



I'm not sure how it happened but recently I found myself with a couple extra bananas and they were over ripe, perfect for banana bread.


I gave Baby Maria the task to smash the bananas, which she did and then ate them all.

Hummm...

And then she ditched me to go see what the boys were up to.


Oh good, Enzo is doing Math and Sam, the neighbor, is doing nothing. I can't even tell you how many times my kids have gotten in trouble because they like feeding the monkeys which kind of encourages the whole monkeys coming into the house and raiding our fruit basket. Just last week we had an episode where a group of monkeys came into our living room. Baby Maria was eating a banana and the monkeys tried to take it away from her. True story! I know it sounds cliche, even ridiculous.


Which reminds me of when I first moved to the U.S 


I was 7 years old when my family moved to Chicago. I remember the silly questions my peers would ask about Brazil. Animals were often involved. “Did you have snakes where you lived?” “Did you see lots of monkeys?” “Did you live in a tree with the monkeys?” No there were no snakes where I lived and no, there certainly were no monkeys. I was born in Sao Paulo, a mega concrete jungle and I tried to explain to my elementary school peers that I had come from a city bigger, much bigger, than Chicago. 


Fast forward a couple years and now I find myself Facebooking those elementary school peers, because obviously we're total BFFs on Facebook, and telling them that indeed there are monkeys in Brazil, and in fact they like to hang out right in front of my house. 


Suddenly I feel like a lot of childhood fantasies are coming true.


(printable version)

  • 6 bananas ripe and mashed. This recipe works best with apple-bananas, though any variety of bananas work too.
  • 1/3 cup vegetable oil
  • 1/3 cup dark brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup white granulated sugar
  • 1 egg beaten
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon fennel seeds

  1. Preheat oven to 350*
  2. In a large mixing bowl mix the oil with the mashed bananas.
  3. Add the brown and white sugar, egg, and vanilla and mix until smooth.
  4. Sprinkle the baking soda and baking powder over the mixture and stir.
  5. Add the flour and mix until the mixture is nice and smooth.
  6. Mix in the fennel seeds carefully into the batter.
  7. Pour the mixture in to an oiled bundt pan.
  8. Bake for 30 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes on a wire rack before removing it from the pan.
  9. Serve with a cold glass of milk.

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