RAINY DAYS AT THE LAKE | 26 MAY 2009
Every year I try to get home for Memorial Day Weekend or the End of May Bank Holiday. It marks the wedding anniversary of my father and step-mother, but more officially the beginning of summer. It used to be a rather hit or miss weekend in New England; a scorcher or snowing. Nowadays, given the glories of global warming, it’s usually pretty nice. This year there were some blemishes on the forecast but all in all we were in for a good summer weekend. That was until the wrath of the heavens unleashed upon us a tempestuous downpour of magnificent proportions. Enough of the Shakespearean language, you are probably saying! Well let me give you some background. The house in Connecticut is a converted children’s camp complete with a theatre and corrugated tin roof. It is the roof that makes for the flowery language. When it rains the noise is deafening and downright frightening. That said; there is also not much to do at a lake house when it rains except well, bake. And so we did. No one had planned on baking or anything less than hours upon hours of uninterrupted sunshine so we had to make due with what we had. Banana bread was the target and it came out pretty well. We had to figure out what to do during the hour it was meant to bake but when we came back the sun was setting over the lake as the mist rose and the kitchen was filled with the smell of banana bread. Not a bad afternoon after all.
Ingredients
5 Bananas
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 ¼ baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
Step 1: Pre-heat the oven to 350 F / 170 C and grease a loaf pan.
Step 2: Mash the bananas and then combine with the other ingredients until smooth. (You may want to sift the flour and baking soda/powder).
Step 3: Pour the mixture into the pan and bake for about an hour.
Note: We used Sugar in the Raw or brown granulated sugar (in packets to be more specific) and we didn’t have any Baking Powder so had to use a substitute. The recommendation is that you use baking soda (the alkali) and cream of tartar (the acid) to sub in, but the likelihood of you (or me) having cream of tartar on hand if you don’t have baking powder is unlikely. We used baking soda and lemon juice it worked just fine in bread such as this.