The Undomestic Goddess: Banana Bread Central

This afternoon my three year old ran up to me and gave me one of his rare hugs. “Mommy, you’re the best cooker ever in the kitchen” he said sincerely. I felt this strange flush in my cheeks.

As a general rule, I don’t cook. My husband spent much of his youth and young adulthood cooking in delicious, exotic, and amazing kitchens across England, so these days my presence in the kitchen is at best superfluous, and more often, totally unwelcome. The division of creative labour has been established: Daddy cooks, Mommy is responsible for putting together toddler outfits.

So when I happened upon three ridiculously brown bananas in the fruit bowl, I pulled out the green box to toss them. “Why don’t you make banana bread?” Mark offered, on his way through the kitchen to his home office. I thought I spotted an upward curl at the corner of his mouth, but picked up my phone to google “super easy banana bread recipe.”

An hour later, my family was putty in my hands. My child had hearts in his eyes and my husband was re-envisioning our lives together.

Ingredients (Serves 10, but really 5)

  • 3 ripe (read brown) bananas, mashed.
  • 1/4 cup butter, melted
  • 1 cup white sugar (I sub brown sugar or Xylitol every time)
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon table salt

Method

  • Preheat the oven to 325° F and grease a 9×5″ loaf pan.
  • Combine bananas, sugar, egg, and butter together in a bowl.
  • Mix flour and baking soda together in a separate bowl
  • Stir into banana mixture until batter is just mixed.
  • Stir salt into batter.
  • Pour batter into the prepared loaf pan.
  • Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean, about 1 hour (but I usually find it’s browned after about 45 minutes so I tent some tinfoil loosely over it and bake another 10-15 like that.)

Whether you’re a stud in the kitchen or a dud like me—this recipe will actually earn the respect of your family and friends and turn you from an undomestic goddess into a culinary queen (in-training.)

Lonelle Selbo

Writer, Designer, Editor. Publisher + Editor of auLAIT Magazine. Creative Director at auLAIT Media. Mama of Sebastian + Partner to Mark. Lover of Prince Edward County, my beautiful home. Most often, a very happy human.

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