I love picking berries.
Like, a lot.
When we moved to our apartment in the city here two years ago, I was so excited to see blackberry bushes by our parking area. It was such a treat to pick a few and snack on them whenever we'd get into the car. I never went out and actually picked a bunch of them, though.
Until now.
Look at all those berries!
I had a banana on its way out in the cupboard, and I needed to do something with it quickly. I could use it to make my Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies, but my husband isn't always a fan when I "mess with the classics," especially when it's his precious Chocolate Chip Cookies.
BUT TOO BAD, because if there's one thing I love more than berry picking, it's experimentation when I bake.
So why not try to mix these berries with my banana?
Naturally, this line of thought led to....
Yum, yum, yum! It's so good, and the berries are so tart and juicy - so perfect!
I only used two bananas in it, one of them being green (I couldn't wait for it to turn), so the banana flavour is very slight, but I think that's good - it doesn't overpower the berries. I had made Banana-Pineapple Bread about a year ago, and you couldn't taste the pineapple for all the banana. Such sadness.
Since this was a winner, I decided I'd share it with the world! THE WORLD NEEDS TO KNOW OF THIS DELICIOUSNESS. I adapted the recipe from my standard Banana Bread recipe, which I adapted from one I found in one of my random cookbooks (I rarely use the recipes in cookbooks without fiddling with them somehow). So here you go!
Blackberry Banana Bread
2 cups all-purpose flour
1½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
¾ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup firmly packed brown sugar
½ cup melted butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2-3 mashed bananas
1-2 cups blackberries
Preheat the oven to 350° and grease a loaf pan.
Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Set aside.
Mix the sugars, butter, eggs, vanilla, and bananas in a large bowl. Slowly add in the flour mixture and combine (I use the Alton Brown ⅓ method - add in ⅓ of the dry ingredients at a time). Mix until moistened, but don't overmix. The batter will be lumpy.
Fold in the blackberries. You can get a little zealous here, since blackberries are so fragile. The more you mix, the more the berries will break up, and you might end up with a swirly bread - still delicious, I'm sure!
(This is as swirly as mine got - not too much)
Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 55-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow the bread to cool outside of its pan.
This bread is so tasty, I keep having to stop myself from eating it all! I haven't even had it with butter yet, but I really need to.
Of course, there was unintended misery that came with this bread. We live in an attic apartment, so in the summer it gets hot.
Like really hot.
There is only one window in the apartment that will hold an air conditioner, but that window is right next to a stairwell, so all the cool air just sinks down there. I really honestly don't even know why we turn the air conditioner on - I don't think it helps one ounce. We have fans, but they really just blow the hot air around if it gets too bad.
So having the oven on in the apartment rose the temperature in my apartment by about 5°, which is horribly miserable.
75° outside.
83° inside.
Awful.
I get so bad when I'm too hot. I really just turn into a massive baby, whining and being generally crabby. It irritates me so much to be sweating like crazy when all you're doing is sitting on the couch. That's why as we look for a house, my husband and I refuse to even entertain those that don't have central air. Bleh.
In any case, I hope you enjoy the bread!! Until next time! Stay cool!
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