Banana Bread!

My family is big on banana bread. The recipe that we use is from the old Fannie Farmer cookbook, whatever edition my grandmother gave my mom way back when (not my edition. I have the anniversary edition without the expanded recipes.) And you don't mess with the recipe. Sure you can add chocolate chips if you're feeling chocolatey, or pecans if your feeling nutty, but the basic recipe stays the same.

When I moved to Colorado in '05, I'd of course heard about the high altitude baking issues. It took a while before I started to notice them in my own cooking, though. I'm superstitious enough to believe that it didn't really start happening until other people started pointing it out as a possible problem, aghast at the fact that I'd yet to experience the issue in my own kitchen.

Suddenly my cupcakes exploded. my cookies turned into crispy flat messes, and my banana bread turned into this dense, dry thing that barely resembled what I remembered. I miss sea level baking!

Over the weekend, faced with four banana bread ripe bananas, I finally decided to try a new recipe. And I vowed to find a recipe that was different enough from my basic Fannie Farmer one that there was a possibility that it might work (and that I wouldn't feel guilty for abandoning the family favorite). I am happy to announce that I succeeded on both counts!

Ree Drummond over at Pioneer Woman posted what turned out to be the most fantastic banana bread I think I've ever baked up! It stayed nice and moist and tasted phenomenal. I did make some tiny adjustments to the baking soda and baking powder - and thank GOD I did, because it baked up dangerously close to the edge of my Bundt pan as it was - but otherwise it worked perfectly even here in Colorado.

I won't repost the recipe, but you can get it off of Ree's website here. We topped it off with melted butter (of course), but here in the pic that's actually Pine Cone Syrup from Zingerman's (a gift from Dad). Amazing stuff!