Birthday banana nut bread

I had glorious plans for my three-day weekend — glorious in a way Peter Gibbons would enjoy, in that I planned to watch a lot of Voyager on Netflix and sit on my butt as long as possible. But then I forgot the charger for my laptop at my internship and I was forced to do such abominable things as talk to my roommates and read books like some kind of Luddite.

Okay, it really wasn't all that bad.

One thing that did go the way I planned was banana bread. It was my friend's birthday on Friday, and when I offered to bake him a cake he said he didn't "need" a cake. A cakeless birthday is a thing unheard of and not tolerated (unless it's my own birthday) and I told him so. He requested banana nut bread, and I happily complied. I was lucky enough to have my brother and our friend helping out.

I've had Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook for a while but haven't gotten a chance to use it until now. And I've gotta say, the results were well worth it.

First up, mix all the dry ingredients in a separate bowl:

Mix the eggs, sugar (as always, I used brown sugar instead of plain sugar), and vegetable oil together...

Whoops, glare.

... then slowly add the flour mixture in. At this point the mixture was almost doughy and my used Kitchen Aide was wheezing a bit. We added in buttermilk, vanilla, bananas, and chopped walnuts, but skipped the coconut Martha recommended because, well, coconut is gross.

This recipe makes enough for two loaves. I tried to split them evenly, but I'm terrible at it.

Seriously bad at dividing things evenly. How did I get to college?

We stuck them in the oven for an hour and went off to Slide Hill Park to scare the bejeesus out of ourselves.

Film cameras: Not always a good choice.
Slide Hill Park: Always a good choice.

It worked, and when we got back the banana bread was mostly done. (We did leave it in an extra 10 minutes longer than Martha recommended because it didn't seem done.) We barely waited for it to cool before we dug in.

The loaf I gave away I wrapped in parchment paper and string. I was going for a home-made look, but my friend asked if I had added a prison shiv in the package, so maybe I didn't quite get my point across.

As a bonus, I made a cake shaped like the Norman Shield to celebrate this weekend's initiation of new brothers into Boyfriend's Fraternity. I'm pretty proud of the decoration on this one (the cake itself was just a box mix), so I just had to show it off!

Anyway, here's the recipe. Again, it belongs to Martha Stewart, so let's all cross our fingers and hope she doesn't sue me for reposting it here.

Banana Nut Bread

Ingredients:

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

0.75 teaspoon salt

3 large eggs

2 cups sugar

1.3 cups vegetable oil

2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract

1.5 cups ripe mashed banana (about 3 medium bananas)

1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

1 cup (about 4 ounces) walnuts or pecans, toasted and finely chopped

0.5 cup buttermilk

To make:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Coat two 9 by 5 inch loaf pans with cooking spray; set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the eggs, sugar, and vegetable oil on medium-low speed until combined. Beat in the flour mixture. Add the vanilla, banana, coconut, nuts, and buttermilk, and beat just to combine.

3. Divide batter evenly between prepared pans; smooth with an offset spatula. Bake, rotating pans halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in the centers comes out clean, 60 to 65 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Remove loaves from pans and let cool completely. Bread can be kept at room temperature, well wrapped in plastic, for up to 1 week, or frozen for up to 3 months.