Banana Bread & Vanilla on My Cookbook

It all started with vanilla on my cookbook.

I was attempting to bake banana bread for the first time by myself. My family's kitchen was very small at that point in time (we remodeled it later) and I was prepping right inbetween the phone and the stove. The cookbook lay on the counter below me, guiding me each step of the way. Above this counter was the spice and baking cabinet. On the very top shelf, was this beautifully shaped jar of vanilla. Real vanilla. As in my mom's good friend brought it back from Mexico as a gift, real vanilla.

You see where this is going.

I was in an...'awkward' stage at that point in my development. I was gangly and tall for my age (that's another story). I reached to the very top shelf to get something; I really don't remember what.

Crash, all over the cookbook that lovely jar of vanilla went. My mom wasn't angry at all, but very gracious. We cleaned everything up, checked the banana bread for glass shards and wiped down the cookbook. She said the cookbook was mine now and it kinda became a joke. Funny thing is, I really don't use it much, but for a recipe here or there.

To this day, that cookbook still has faint hint of vanilla buried in the binding. And because my mother was understanding and let me bang around in the kitchen, even when I made messes, I now love cooking, baking and food. And I'm blogging about it :-)

So now, the moment you've all been waiting for: the release of the treasured banana bread recipe. I've tweaked it quite a bit, and I encourage you to do the same with any recipe you find.

Ingredients:

2 cups coconut sugar
2/3 cup organic vegetable shortening (I use the brand in this picture. You can buy it at Fred Meyer for $5 or $6 and it lasts for a while. If you can tolerate dairy, use butter!)

5 eggs

2 tbsp vanilla extract

2-3 tbsp cinnamon

2 tsp nutmeg

8-9 bananas (the riper, the better)

2 cups brown rice flour

1 1/3 cups almond flour/meal

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. 

Cream (mix thoroughly with an electric hand held blender) sugar and shortening in large bowl. Add eggs and mix until fluffy. Add vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Peel bananas and mash with a potato masher or fork in a small bowl. Banana should still be slightly chunky. Do not over mash them, please!

Add bananas to sugar-cream mixture and mix.

Add all dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt and baking powder) and mix.

If you are using tin or metal baking pans, grease the pans with shortening or a spray-on olive oil.

Pour batter into two loaf pans.

Bake for about 1 hour. Bread will be dark golden brown on top and a toothpick inserted will come out clean.

Let cool for a few minutes before enjoying ;-)