The Banana Bread Blog

Everyone who has ever baked a banana bread believes that theirs is the best in the world. This is unfortunate, because they are living a lie. Mine is the best.

Ok, I'm willing to share this title with my mother, since I use her recipe. I would extend to her the same right--to bestow the same honor on whomever shared the recipe with her--but I honestly can't speak for their baking method.

I wish that I had a secret to share about the banana bread, but I don't. Perhaps the secret is that I don't try to make it flashy and fancy. It's banana bread, people, not a sparkly bejewelled sweatshirt.

Now the question of quality and perception of quality comes to everyone's mind. The perfect banana bread must not be too dry (I think we can all agree on that, at least). It should maintain the same density throughout (we've all had that bread that gets harder to chew the farther your teeth get from the top). And the top...well, that's where the magic happens. The very top of the banana bread should open like a seam, it spreads just so, naturally, and in tasty goodness. The top isn't crusty, but a moist squishy layer that will stick to your teeth and cling to your taste buds. It's the epitome of the art of baking, where flour and banana and sugar and egg and whatever else the recipe calls for cease to exist as ingredients and come together in harmony.

If only we could each live our lives through the metaphor of the banana bread top. We'd all be pretty special.