Dynamite Banana Bread.....no Foolin'....

  Chocolate Chunky Monkey Banana Muffins



Top 'o the muffin top.....mmmmm



Bringin' home the Blue



As with any good quick bread recipe start with two bowls....one for the wet ingredients and one for the dry.  This is a stellar recipe and can be used for loaves, mini-loaves, muffins, mini-muffins, birthday and Bundt cakes.  It's all about the moist factor with this recipe so use quality ingredients - especially in the wet. 

It's also award winning in most of its previously mentioned forms at both the Coombs Fall Fair and the Lighthouse Country Fall Fair.  Not that I'm braggin' or anything.....actually I am so if y'all can't hack it too bad:) 

 

This is a doubled recipe that I use to produce one loaf, a dozen large muffins and 24 mini-muffins.

Don't ever underestimate the power of the nasty black banana. I freeze 'em when they get to the stage where nobody's touching them then remove then from the freezer for a few minutes.  Peel 'em, mash 'em and give 'em a shot of vanilla before I let 'em sit for a bit either in the fridge for a few days or on the counter while you're preparing the rest of the ingredients. 

You can also peel over-ripe bananas first, mash 'em up with that shot of vanilla then transfer into ziploc bags and freeze flat. I use this method for our travel trailer. I made killer muffins at Strathcona Beach a few summers back and the response was outta sight. Kids loved them and the smell in the campground had everyone runnin'......good way to meet your neighbours that for sure!

 

WET

2 cups mashed, very ripe bananas

2 cups granulated sugar - choose your poison here and substitute accordingly

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 cup sour cream/yogurt/buttermilk

3 large eggs, beaten

Shot of good Mexican vanilla

In large bowl combine bananas, sugar, oil, sour cream, eggs and vanilla.  Mix thoroughly. Set aside.

DRY

3 cups flour - however your family is rollin' when it comes to flour go for it

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

Optional:  chocolate chips, chopped dark baking chocolate, nuts, seeds, dried fruit

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. If you're adding chips/nuts/fruit you can add them now. 

For Chocolate Chunky Monkey Banana Muffins I added 3/4 of a cup of roughly chopped fine, dark Swiss chocolate to the remaining batter after filling my loaf pan.  Everyone's happy:)

Add to banana mixture - mixing just until combined.  Seriously......don't beat the crap out of this batter it just won't turn out the way you want it.  

Pour into loaf pan and muffin tins.   You can grease 'n flour if that's your thing or use the spray or maybe your pans don't require anything.  I use muffin liners for my muffins and my loaf pan is given a bit of butter greasing then a slab of parchment paper for an easy transfer from pan to cooling rack.  

Bake in 325 oven about an hour for the loaf, 15-20 minutes for regular muffins and about 12 minutes for mini-muffins.  Loaves need some TLC those last few minutes.....keep an eye on the centre of the loaf to ensure it's baked all the way through and for the love of all that is baked goodness use a frickin' tester.  If it comes out clean you're all good. 

Cool in pans for about 5-10  minutes before turning out onto rack to cool completely. 



Muffins and Tea for you and me....



Now that's a chunky monkey!





My Blog: There and Back Again

I started a blog to get myself writing more.  Determined to get busy writing something, a thought, an introduction, a paragraph...an idea or wonderment at my world around me. I imagined my blog as the perfect tool to keep me ramblin' on.  Discipline was what I needed.  I would post pictures and graphics, quirky little anecdotes, lists of my favourite stuff, take fifteen minutes out of my day to just put down a few hundred words and keep my writing muscles flexing. No problem...I could fit that into my day.  

Unfortunately my blog got away from me......actually it was my life that picked up speed with another baby, family drama on both my husband's side and my own, health issues, the fodder that is raising a family......and so my blog was left behind as of my last post in September of 2010. I like a few of my first few posts....too long now I'm thinkin'....but still worth continuing on with.  I just couldn't keep up, couldn't get motivated, the thought of attracting a huge audience like the really serious blogs out there seeming impossibly daunting, scrolling, commenting and 'liking' on Facebook easier and less stressful than choosing my own topic and cranking out my own ideas about it. 

So here I am again....making a promise to my 3 official followers and whoever else accidentally landed here that I will visit here often.  I will not leave it so long between check-ins.  I would love to say fiercly that I will blog every single day but I know myself, I know my life, and so I won't do that to  myself.  It's what happened the first time round and has led me to here. Twice a week is more doable, more realistic so I'm going with that. 

So....what to write about?  What's the blog about really?  What does  From the Hip Mama have to talk about?  And who cares anyway? 

I've decided to always start with food.  I love food and my tooth of weakness is a sweet one so more than likely you will see a lot of pictures of cookies, cakes and ooey gooey. It will be my own photos....these are all my own photos on my blog.  After attempting to organize the My Pictures file on my computer recently it was obvious I have a habit of taking pictures of food be it out of my kitchen or growing from our trees out on our 4 acres of home.  I have a lot of shots of Thanksgiving turkeys covered in bacon strips and a buttery-kissed skin.  It's a beautiful thing......so I'm going with it.

These are Mexican Hot Chocolate cookies (thank you Martha Stewart) alongside my Banana Bread and a lone Nanaimo Bar from the Coombs Country Market.....place with the goats on the roof.....and when I posted this picture on my Facebook page I wondered what people might say....or  not say.  Found out most people like cookies.  "Delivery or pick-up?" commented one friend, "Wish I lived closer!" said another to which another friend 'liked'.  And my favourite comment of "Mmmmmmmm......"  finally sealed the deal for me.  Decided there and then that food was coming to my blog.  Because a blog should start out at least coming from a personal place don't y'all think?  Otherwise it's just trying to be 'liked' , trying for the sideways smiley-face or heart-shaped icon, it's looking for approval and feeding your pride, and it just ends up sounding forced and feeling unnatural.  And I'm not cool with forcing my words out. 

My Banana Bread is good.  Many people have told me so.  I've won a few blue ribbons at fall fairs with it so people with clipboards think so too so I suppose that proves it.  The proof for me is when my 20 year old stepson shows up with bags of frozen black bananas from his freezer and asks me nicely to please use them to make banana bread for him.  It's when my friend's twin boys gobble up my banana chocolate chip muffins and come back for more because ''They're just so GOOD!". It's when I hear from people that their banana bread just never comes out like mine.  It's my own.  And that's good.  We all need something of our own that no one else can duplicate or figure out.  My banana bread won't save the world but it's saved the day a few times at my house, started a conversation where there wasn't one before, has kept my kids in the kitchen beside me instead of plugged in somewhere, fills my house with the smell of comfort and home.

Hard to argue in a kitchen that smells great.  But that's just me........