Finally! Old Bananas!

One thing that I very rarely see in grocery stores here are very ripe bananas for baking. I've seen them a few times through the years, and about 6 weeks ago we were in a shop in Donegal Town that had them. I'd been thinking about making banana bread (not the really sweet quick kind, but a yeasted loaf), but we had enough bread at that moment and I knew that if I made more, some of it would go bad. I figured I'd just go back to that store the next time we were there and get bananas then. Of course, when I went back, they didn't have any of the very ripe ones. We buy bananas regularly, but they're usually greenish. We end up eating them before they start getting the spots that mean they're perfect for baking. I kept wanting banana bread, but, yes, I had no bananas with which to make it.

Last week when we went off to Ballina, I seized the opportunity to leave some bananas on the table. When we got back, they had black spots. I left them for a few more days and today, I made the bread. I timed it to be ready in enough time to cool a bit but still be warm at suppertime. I made a simple supper of omelettes with veggies, fruit, and the warm bread. It was delicious!

One reason I like to make bread myself is because even wholemeal bread here is very airy. It's OK sometimes, but we prefer bread to be a bit more dense and I can make it the way we like it. I find that adding coconut and oats makes it a bit lighter than using all wholemeal flour, so that's what I do. The bread has substance, but isn't brick-like.

This bread has the usual butter, salt, and water, along with a couple of tablespoons of sugar, a couple of mashed bananas, coconut, oats, flax seed, ground walnuts, cinnamon, vanilla, strong wholemeal flour and a bit of plain wholemeal flour. I set the machine to the whole wheat setting. I do have to monitor the bread (and pizza crust) dough when I first put it in to make sure it's not too wet or too dry, but once it's just right, I leave it to do its thing.

I'm glad to have finally made the banana bread. It's yummy. And I'll keep my eyes open for more old bananas when I'm in a grocery store. Or maybe I'll just buy some greenish ones and hide them so we don't end up eating them before they're ripe enough to mash up for bread.

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