Chemistry lecture was cancelled today, so I had a few moments this afternoon and thought I’d try my hand at baking a banana loaf.

Well, something went wrong…

I took it out after an hour of cooking, plunged a knife into it, and realised it was still mostly dough inside. Was it missing some key ingredient that I neglected? Is the tired old oven in our kitchen just not able to hit 350F any more?

I stuck it back in for another 20 minutes. The results can seen on the right. Yes, it was cooked all the through. No, it wasn’t burnt. Yes, it is in many small chunks. Yes, I did grease the pan.

Baking is sort of like studying. You spend time studying in order to purchase the satisfaction of a good mark on the test — and that of having learned something new, but it’s less tangible. When you bake, you invest time in the present, and the payoff is a yummy snack.

Well, I’m pretty sure that loaf’s pieces will be yummy when I consume them slathered in butter with chunks of cheese and a tall cold one of milk… but not quite the way I envisioned it.

Mike

EDIT: It seems that all unsatisfactory results were the product of a single miscalculation. I used a slightly smaller pan than was recommended in the recipe. This caused the loaf to be a lot thicker, and therefore not cook properly in 60 minutes, leading to the overdone crust and subsequent disintegration.

← Earlier Later → Posted at 12:05 am to Food.