This might be the most unattractive cake I’ve ever made, which is both disappointing and hilarious.
Disappointing because the pictures from the recipe I based it on are quite pretty, but somehow it didn’t translate (more on that later).
Hilarious because, as my darling Nate pointed out when he went to cut himself a piece, the bananas look like penises (yup, I just said that).
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I am constantly on the search for the “best” or “perfect” recipe for certain things – among them, pancakes, pie crust, and chocolate chip cookies. My go-to pancake recipe has been one that I got from TV quite a few years ago, and it has never failed me… however it calls for buttermilk, which is not something I usually have hanging out in my fridge, especially on random weekend mornings when the pancake urge hits. I end up making sour milk with a dash of white vinegar and subbing it for the buttermilk, but the fact that the recipe contains an inconvenient ingredient sort of subtracts from the “perfectness” of the recipe for me (yeah, I’m a weirdo). (Also, I’ve never really understood what makes a buttermilk pancake any better than a regular pancake, so I’ve never really seen the need to use buttermilk.) Anyway, the quest continued…
I came across this recipe, aptly named “Perfect Pancakes”, on a food blog about a year ago, and wrote it down in my little recipe notebook without noting the source, which I though I would never again find in the bowels of teh interwebz. However, through the magic of Google, I found it, so I can give credit where credit is due for what really is the perfect pancake! I finally made them for the first time the other week, and I will definitely be making them again. They were beautifully light and fluffy and they cooked up perfectly, and they didn’t require any ingredients other than those normally found in my kitchen (ie, no buttermilk). I added frozen blueberries and strawberries and bananas and served them with maple syrup (don’t even talk to me about that Aunt Jemima crap!). Please try these. They actually are perfect 🙂
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You may suspect that I am employing hyperbole in the title of this post. My friends, you are incorrect! This actually IS the best banana bread in the entire world. Ever. This recipe comes to me via my friend Lynette’s mum, Elaine, and it has attained legendary fame by all who have tried it as being absolutely fan-freakin’-tastically delicious. This banana bread comes out light and fluffy, sweet and moist, and is likely to disappear in a shorter amount of time than it took you to bake it. The first time I tasted it, Elaine had made a double batch, and it was absolute torture smelling it as it baked. Lynette and I then devoured an entire loaf, hot and steaming from the oven.
I have made this recipe a billion times, and I’ve played around it it a bit, so that my typical banana bread comes out slightly different from Elaine’s original recipe. I add an extra banana and some vanilla, and to convince myself that it’s a little bit good for me, I usually substitute in some whole wheat flour. Then I also usually add a bunch of chopped chocolate or chocolate chips, which effectively cancels out any health benefits the whole wheat flour might add… But whatever. It tastes divine….
On Monday I watched a show on the Food Network that featured amazing-looking banana pecan pancakes, and I was immediately inspired to recreate the recipe. I had a feeling that Shrove Tuesday – aka Pancake Tuesday – was coming up soon, and a quick Google search revealed that it was actually the next day. Well! What a coincidence!
On Tuesday morning as I stumbled into the shower, I mumbled incoherently at Nate that it was Shrove Tuesday and I would be making pancakes for dinner. His response was a confused, “What? Why pancakes?”
When they look like this, why NOT pancakes?!
Not being Christian or religious myself, I realized that I had only the vaguest inkling of the link between Shrove Tuesday and pancakes (I just knew it had something to do with Lent), and certainly not enough of an understanding to explain it, so I just yelled, “Shrove Tuesday. Pancakes. Lent!” from behind the shower curtain, leaving Nate still mostly unsure about why we were having pancakes for dinner.
But I didn’t care about why, I was more concerned with what, as in what kind of pancakes to make? Banana pecan, of course! I spent most of Tuesday composing flavours in my head and figuring out what to serve along with the pancakes. I eventually settled on a fruit salad of Gala apples, oranges, red grapes, and a handful of frozen blueberries, and I would add the zest from the orange to the pancake batter to make them orange pecan banana. We were out of maple syrup, but I remembered seeing a homemade syrup recipe on Dinner with Julie, so I decided to make that as well.
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