Banana Hugs

Do you ever feel like everything and nothing at the same time? Welcome to 24. That's what I have decided. In the past year two years, it seems like I have gone everywhere and nowhere. I'd apologize for sounding like a Dr. Seuss book, but I've also decided not to be sorry.

It has taken me far too long not to be sorry about not knowing what to do or where to go, but my shoes are now on my feet so to speak and I'm approaching the a starting line.

I've worked in art, I've worked with food, I've worked in kitchens and offices and in the middle noweheresville New Hampshire. I've written newsletters, emails, articles, presentations, tweets, speeches, labels, ingredient lists, orders and posts. No novel yet but its coming...one day.

I've been burned by pans, harangued, hit, hated, loved and liked. I've fit people for socks and shoes and races, cried crybaby tears and whined about places.

But I'm not sorry.

I can make granola by the pound, cookies by the hundred and run for miles. I can do more pull ups than most men and run in heels or even discuss the state of American painting or the Patriots, whichever you fancy.

So on days when my tray of sticky buns, studded with pecans and oozing with molten lava goo, crash onto the floor and the damage rivals the Valdez Oil Spill and I get a ticket at Harvard while volunteer coaching and I find out I'm allergic to wheat... I have to remind myself of all the above. (Insert All the Above by Maino here for a comic reprieve)

I don't know where you're at friends, but if you're having one of those days where you are everywhere and nowhere at once, sit down for 3 minutes and write yourself a list of things you can do well... and then bake.

Its accomplishment, its deliciousness and its healthful. What more can you ask for?

Banana Chocolate Chip Bread
Inspired by Babycakes Bakery

Makes Two Small Loaf Pans

1 Cup of Gluten Free All Purpose Flour (Bob's or Trader Joe's will work)
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 Tsp Baking Soda
1/2 Tsp Xanthan Gum
1 Tsp of Salt (I used Sea Salt)
1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1 tsp All Spice
1 splash (2-3 second pour) of Vanilla Extract
1/4 C Coconut Oil (Liquified or semi-solid works)
1/3 C Agave nectar
1/3 Cup Almond Milk
3 Medium Bananas Roughly Mashed or 2 Medium Bananas and 1/4 C Unsweetened Applesauce

Preheat oven to 325. Step One Accomplished

Take your bananas and mash them separately. Do not completely liquify them. Leave some good and chunky pieces. Now put them aside for awhile. Don't be sad though, they make a reappearance in Act Three.

Whisk together Dry ingredients in a Medium Size Bowl. Think 3x by Cereal Bowl .
-Flour
-Baking Powder
-Baking Soda
- X-Gum (sounds so much cooler than xanthan gum)
-Salt
-Spices

Now, Add your wet ingredients. LOOK AT YOU GO
-Agave
-A.Milk
-C-Oil
-Vanilla

Stir this bad boy up until it is SMOOTH. That means the coconut oil bombs have disappeared. You have taken your whisk and dug down to the crater of the bowl where Flour mines are often buried. LEAVE NO CREVICE UNWHISKED.

Now Put the dirty whisk in the sink. Take a spatula or wooden spoon and Fold in the Bananas until its evenly mixed in. Resist the temptation to take your spatula and just spin it around the bowl a few times.

Remember the game hot hands? You put your hands on the bottom palms up, someone puts their palms on yours face down and you have to slap the living daylights out of their hands before they pull them away..? That flipping motion is what you should be doing with your spatula and bananas- but slower and with less intent to injure. Maybe that's my third grade demonic side coming through. But I digress.

At this point, I highly suggest adding dark chocolate chips, cacoa nibs, or dark chocolate chips. The banana and the chocolate are about as meant for each other as Sunny and Cher, Pb and J or Kanye and Kim.... 

Spray the loaf tins with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray (or C oil). These guys need roughly 30-35 minutes to bake. I turned mine 180 degrees after 17 minutes and checked for doneness starting at 30.

Doneness check method? Find yourself a toothpick and insert it in the cake. Clean? It's done. Besmirched with crumbs? Not so done.

It will be a toasty mahogany color when done. It should not look liquidy in the slightest at the top.

Now you've taken them out of the oven. Restrain the urge to dive right in for at least 20 minutes. All the banana-y goodness needs to set itself up in the pan. Run your knife all around the pan to loosen-er up. Cover the loaf pan with a dishtowel or plate and flip it, flip it good to remove the loaf from the pan.

Now you can set this little guy up on a cutting board or plate and slice it warm or if you can bear it, wait till its completely cool.

When you're done eating half the loaf...wrap it in plastic wrap and store at room temp. It will be okay for up to 4 days but I will be shocked if you don't inhale it before then.

Don't tell anyone its GF and vegan until after they eat it. They won't have a clue...or you can keep it our little secret.

 Finished Product? Banana Chocolate Hug