Not a Cupcake: Iron Skillet Banana Bread.

Kitty here with a bit of a solo project! Sara was on vacation with the rest of the family this past week, and so I cleaned the entire kitchen as a nice gesture for our momma. In the course of cleaning, I found three heavily spotted, extremely ripe bananas. Well, being that I am a freak who likes her bananas still mostly green, I knew I wasn’t going to eat them. Obvious answer: Banana bread!

Of course, as soon as one has an idea, one finds the pantry lacking, so I needed to find the most simple banana bread recipe and even then I had to modify it. I used this set of ingredients from Food.com and substituted everything I didn’t actually have.

I really love this recipe even though it was completely devoid of any spices or flavorings. It was hearty without being dense, moist and buttery and had a yummy, strong banana flavor. The only thing I would do different is add walnuts but my brother hates them, so I left them out this time.

RECIPE

((You can, of course substitute your favorite recipe of choice. This was just what I could manage with the pantry contents.))

·       1/2 cup salted butter

·       3/4-1 cup light brown sugar

·       2 eggs

·       1 teaspoon baking soda.

·       2 cups flour ((in my case I used 1 cup of standard flour and one cup+2 tablespoons of cake flour because I ran out of regular flour. I would advise doing this, it made it so yummy and fluffy!))

·       3 ripe bananas

OVEN TEMP:  300 degrees. Rack in the middle of the oven.

1)   Grease and flour your skillet.  ((I used “Pam for Baking” cooking spray.))

2)   Mush up the bananas until they’re as smooth as you can get them.

3)   Combine banana mash with brown sugar, softened butter and both kinds of flour until there are no more dry spots and everything looks so smooth.

4)   Pour into the skillet and place in the oven. Bake for 45-55 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. The edges should pull away from the skillet slightly.

5)   Either wait for it to cool and pop it out of the skillet or cut into wedges.

MAKES:  8 really thick slices*

*I used a 12” skillet. Halve everything for a 9” skillet.

SERVING SUGGESTION:  Cut in half and slather with peanut butter. I personally enjoyed mine with a cup of dark hot chocolate.

In conclusion: I never want to cook anything not cooked in an iron skillet ever. 

-Kitty 

P.S. As usual, the photos are by me.