Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Sometimes what seems like a fabulous idea...


turns out to be a nightmare for your taste buds, and so goes the story of the black and white banana loaf chosen by Ashlee of A Year In The Kitchen. Now I have to be honest and say I may have played a minuscule role in the grossness of this recipe (ok fine, I really crapped it up), but some things in life should not be tampered with and that is a strict rule I adhere to for chocolate.

This recipe was destined for disaster, as soon as my tired ass attempted to make it half asleep at 12:00 AM. Don't judge me. I know you are thinking "well that is what happens when you procrastinate", but really I wasn't (this time). I've been running around like a mad man all week because I leave for vacation on Friday, and seriously haven't had a free moment of time (ok, ok so maybe I procrastinated in other areas which in turn affected my TWD timing, but whateva, whateva, you're not the boss of me).

The first step to this disaster is that I attempted to halve this recipe while delirious from sleep. That is never a good thing, as my being exhausted is equivalent to a drunk being passed out on the bathroom floor. Attempting anything coherent in this state is borderline suicidal. The halved recipe called for 1.5 oz of chocolate, but I was too tired to take out my kitchen scale so I eyeballed it. Yeah I know, shut up. Apparently my eyeballing skills aren't as accurate as I believed them to be, but we'll come back to that later.

The next part of this disaster is that in my tired stupor I forgot I was halving the recipe and plopped the entire amount of butter that a full recipe called for in the mixer, and started adding the remaining halved ingredients blind to the fact that they were drowning in butter. I prepared to assemble my black and white loaf, and taste both the regular banana bread batter as well as the chocolate banana bread batter. The traditional banana bread batter was fabulous! Even though the grease from the butter was pooled around the edges and in the middle. The chocolate banana batter on the other hand was all kinds of nasty. The banana flavor in the background of the chocolate nearly made me gag it was so gross. Chocolate should not be tampered with people. This was borderline sacrilege, but I persevered hoping it would be better after it was baked.

I marble the layers together and place my mini loaf pans in the oven, and after about 30 minutes I hear something akin to frying. I run to the kitchen to check on my loafs and realize that the loafs are actually frying in butter, and I suddenly come to the realization "crap I added the full stick of butter".

Fast forward to taking them out of the oven and cooling them. Under the cooling rack is a pool of grease that could have drowned a kitten. I carefully cut into the loaf and butter literally seeps out of the slice. The entire loaf is so saturated with butter that it is wet and dripping. *GAG*



*Please note the loafs squishy consistency, not the least bit sexy*


I tentatively take a bite, and choke and cough. Ewww not only did a pool of butter trickle into my mouth, but the chocolate banana marble completely over powered the traditional banana loaf and it was NASTY. Once again I say CHOCOLATE SHOULD NOT BE TAMPERED WITH PEOPLE! I think the chocolate in this recipe ruined it. Or maybe it has to do with the fact that I may have added more chocolate than required, but still. Chocolate+banana=barf fest.

Also I made a discovery while making this loaf. I didnt have ripe bananas so I used gerber baby food bananas, and I think the traditional loaf would have been fabulous if it wasnt for the chocolate marble. I think i'm going to use that for my banana treats from now on.


Be sure to check out the Tuesdays with Dorie blogroll to see everyone else's barf loafs.

You can find the recipe here @ A Year In The Kitchen.




XOXO
Stay Sweet;)

19 comments:

Bumblebutton said...

Ooops. Your description made my stomach wince. Yuck. So sorry. Have a great vacation!

Amy said...

ha ha ha.. sorry, I had to laugh. I hate it when I screw up halving a recipe, too... happens wayy too often for me.

It looks pretty, though.. so, at least you got that going for it.

marae said...

ha ha you crack me up with your super descriptive posts...drowning in butter does NOT sound appealing. i, however, put extra chocolate and cream and kahlua into my choco marble and it was so amazingly divine i just want to make it all chocolate next time. you couldn't even taste the banana!

Peggy said...

Your loaf experience sounds very similar to mine. But you made me laugh - which is always good!

Anonymous said...

Very funny but I am sorry it didn't work for you.

Jules Someone said...

Sorry it didn't work for you. Just eat the chocolate next time.

Nickki said...

Sorry it didn't work out for you, but I really enjoyed reading your post! I can't tell you how many times I've mucked up a recipe by halving the ingredients, oh and getting a sudden urge to bake at midnight! Never a good idea in my experience. :)

Eleganza Strings/ The DeLadurantey Family said...

Your marbel looks good at least!

Pamela said...

Well, at least you liked the plain banana part. I am really impressed that you made it while you were so wiped out. Loved the "frying in butter" part!

Julie said...

hahahahahaha...i secretly LOVE kitchen disasters (guess it's not so much a secret anymore). You owned me with that barf loaf. LOVE IT!

PheMom said...

Ahhh - welcome to the Baking While Sleep Deprived Club! LOL! Bonus points for not just giving up on not enough time!

Engineer Baker said...

So sad! I mess up halving things all the time, which is why I tend to write the new amounts next to the originals in the cookbook. Saves me a whole lot of nasty.

Linda said...

whew...after this experience, you definitely deserve a vacation!

Susie Homemaker said...

i shouldn't laugh.
but i did.
and am.
too funny.

Anonymous said...

If it's any consolation, I followed all the directions and still didn't like it.

Jacque said...

LOL, I can totally relate to recipe-halving errors. Been there, done that.

Sorry it didn't work out for you. But the thing with TWD is that there's always next week.

Prudy said...

OOH-ouch-sorry it was so lousy. Have a great vacation and forget all about it.

Rigby said...

So sorry to hear of the banana chocolate cake disaster! Hope your vacation is wonderful and restful!

Alicia Foodycat said...

Banana bread is good. Chocolate cake is good. Mixing them sounds like a bad idea to me - although I do love a frozen chocolate banana.