For years, my mother has made the same delicious banana bread from the same beloved Betty Crocker cookbook. The result, too, is always the same. With that small slide of butter across the first slice, the steam and aroma rising up in a vaguely romantic swirl and melting the butter into each of the nooks, it’s evident that everything between your lips and stomach will be alight with warmth and happiness. It’s just that good.
But I performed a sacrilege the other day when I altered the ingredients. We only had two of the necessary three ripened bananas. With a grimace of guilt and the compulsion of intrigue, I switched the third banana out for an equivalent amount of mashed apple. And even though I used a recipe from epicurious.com (I didn’t have my mother’s cookbook), it still turned out lovely.
Banana Apple Bread
2 Medium ripe bananas (read: black, or severly spotted), mashed
¾ Small apple, peeled, cored and diced
1 ½ tsps vanilla extract
1 large egg
¼ Cup sugar
1 ¼ Cup flour
2 tsps baking powder
2 Tbsps melted margarine
Preheat Oven to 350 F. Spray 5×9″ loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray, or lightly grease with margarine. Mash apple with hand-masher or food process to mush. Combine apple, fully ripened bananas (they’re sweeter that way), vanilla, sugar and egg in a large bowl and mix well.In another bowl, mix together the flour and baking powder. Lightly combine the dry ingredients with the other mixture. Add the melted margarine and mix until lightly moistened. Poor batter into pan and bake for 45 min.s – 1 hour. Let cool for at least 15 minutes before eating.
When the bread has cooled down almost all the way, wrap it in wax paper to preserve moisture and freshness. To warm it up, simply pop a slice in the microwave for 15 seconds (butter it first for best taste). This treat is especially good in fall time, when the weather’s cooling down and the colors are in full array across the trees and lawns. Enjoy!
Harmony Brush is a current Lesley University graduate student living in Rochester, NY. She loves people and writing and has a food blog at DharmaDiner.org.
Article image by: Matthew F., Flickr
Hi,
There doesn’t seem to be much flour in this recipe. Should it be 1&1/4 cup, not merely 1/4 cup?
Harmony: I think this should read 1 1/4 cups flour, not 1/4 cup.
Yep, you gals are absolutely right. Upon double-checking my hand-written scrawl, I’ve discovered a “1” in front of the “1/4 Cup.” Thank you so much for bringing it to my attention, and I apologize for any disastrous baking this may have caused.
Good eyes!
So yes, it should read “1 1/4 Cup Flour.”
Editor’s note: Correction made to flour measurement. Previously read “1/4 cups.”