I realized recently that I haven’t made banana bread in awhile (a month or two?) and that it was time to whip out the old favorite. Because it is based on fruit, it can be associated with summer or spring, but it’s so warm and home-y and tastes like fall…but to make it taste even more like fall, I decided to morph it into Banana Pumpkin Bread! Tah-dahhhhhh!
I found that recipes for pumpkin bread are all a little different and have different tastes, textures, and densities. For a quick-bread, banana bread is my favorite because it’s perfectly tasty, moist, and dense but light. Because of this, I knew if I centered my pumpkin bread around my banana bread, all would turn out right!
I used my standard recipe, but I cut the butter amount in half (1/4 cup instead of 1/2). To make up for half of the butter being gone, I used 1/4 cup of apple sauce and 1/2 a can of pumpkin. I added to my recipe: cinnamon, sage, nutmeg, and ginger, which are the basic spices of pumpkin pie.
The result? A perfect blend of banana and pumpkin pie tastes! And most importantly: a happy man. Remember, banana bread was the first thing he “requested” of me before we started dating? Well, now I’ll gladly make it for him, as long as he lets me tweak the recipe!
On another note, I decided to tackle apple pie again yesterday. I didn’t photograph it but I definitely went back to basics. I used the first pie-dough recipe that really worked for me. I made them in ramekins and just filled them with apples tossed in Splenda, cinnamon, lemon juice, and a touch of brown sugar. The little pies turned out so perfect and totally made up for the last apple pie I made…which turned out so abysmal that I threw it away in anger. Thank goodness it worked out last night! Boyfriend and I gobbled them up before I even had a second to take a picture of them. Plus, I enjoyed mine with a small scoop of my pumpkin ice cream which made it taste even better!
