Home Bites: Banana Bread

I baked my first banana bread from scratch today. I've baked brownies and banana bread before, but I always used boxed mixes. After attending a baking class last month, I found out it wasn't that hard to bake from scratch. But the recipes we did called for an electric mixer, so I was hesitant to try them out at home.

While browsing for recipes online, I came across Panlasang Pinoy, which has a simple recipe for banana bread that didn't require a mixer. He even had a video demo for it.

Last weekend I bought the ingredients and was planning to bake on Sunday night. But my laziness got the best of me so it was put on hold. Then this week, we had an unexpected death in the family. My aunt died of acute appendicitis.

I'm only on my second week at my new job so I'm still adjusting. It's been sad and stressful so I decided to make use of the holiday to bake the bad vibes away!

Here's the Banana Bread recipe from Panlasang Pinoy:

1 cup banana, mashed (I used five small lakatan bananas)
1 cup sugar (I used Muscovado)
2 pieces raw eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda

I mixed the dry ingredients first: flour, sugar, salt and baking soda. Then I added the wet ingredients: eggs, mashed bananas, vegetable oil, and vanilla extract. I whisked everything together to form a batter. I made sure there were no large banana chunks. I transferred the batter to a greased 9" x 5" x 2.5" loaf pan.

My oven uses Celcius so I preheated it at 170 degrees (350 degrees Farenheit). I set the timer for an hour and watched Kell on Earth on my laptop.

Tick tock tick tock.

The smell of baking banana bread wafted around my small studio. I had to stop watching my TV show for a second and just indulge in that comforting smell. The combination of banana and vanilla smells amazing. I couldn't wait to see the finished product.

Ta-dah!

The edges were a bit burned but other than that, I think I did well. I give myself 3/5 stars hehe. The bread came out darker because of the Muscovado, but it was moist and soft. It reminded me of the banana bread from Edsa Shangri-La's The Bakeshop (not the taste, okay, just the appearance hehe). My uncle used to be their head of security and he would always buy me a loaf. This has been one of my favorite comfort foods (along with Good Shepherd's ube jam, Heat's pudding, and mac & cheese).

Maybe next time I'll add some walnuts and use white sugar, just to see the difference. This is a really easy recipe, perfect for a beginner like me. I can't wait to bake some more!

P.S. If you have tips on how not to burn the edges, please hit the comment section. Should I adjust my tray in the oven?

UPDATE: 

My second and third batches were much better! I added walnuts, used white sugar instead of Muscovado, and used rock salt instead of iodized salt. I also found out that the reason the edges were burnt because I used butter to grease my pan which is a no-no! Here are photos of my second try:

Everyone liked it! Jay, my officemates, my sister-in-law, even my Mom! I'm so happy. :)