Banana Nut Bread Disaster: Learning to Laugh at Yourself

Okay.  I will be the first one to admit that I am easily embarrassed.  I am a reserved person, preferring to put my best foot forward and make a good impression, so I naturally tend to keep to myself, especially those things which are weaknesses or flaws.  Marriage, however, is helping me, well, my dear Clint, is helping me to admit my failings, apologize if necessary, and even to laugh at myself if the occasion calls for it.  He certainly finds some of the things that I find to be embarrassing or mildly traumatic to be cute and funny – like this morning.

Let’s just say that I am not a baker.  I mastered baking the turtle fudge brownie box mix after many bake sales for theatre, but I am a failure with most everything else.  Okay, I'll admit that I even have a hard time with boxed cookie mixes.  In my defense, there is a big difference between nine and eleven minutes in the oven! 

Yes, I notoriously burn cookies, and I never readily volunteer to bring baked goods to work functions or even brunch with friends.  To clarify a bit, I enjoy cooking, for there is a lesser degree of failure.  When making soup, for example, if it doesn’t taste ideal, you can just add some salt and pepper, maybe a few spices and it is edible at least.  In fact, when I was engaged, I had prided myself in the fact that I would not be serving burnt dinners for our first year of marriage, for I can whip up some tasty meals.  With baking, however, there is a science to it that I somehow do not comprehend.  Dough is finicky in rising, meringue does not always readily fluff when I want it to do so, and a cookie looks good when you take it out of the oven, but magically becomes burnt seconds later when I place it on the plate.  Yes, I have yet to master the art of baking, which was especially noteworthy this morning.
 

All week I have been trying to carve out time to make banana nut bread.  I have been very excited about the prospects of freshly baked bread, now that it is Easter and I am free to enjoy the delicious treats of life again.  The bunch of bananas have been growing progressively darker on the kitchen counter since Sunday, so the pressure to get them mashed and in some bread, led to my, well, fiasco this morning.  Perhaps fiasco is too strong of a word, since the fire department was not called (don’t worry mom), but it was a failure nonetheless.

I woke up this morning, earlier than usual, and went straight to the kitchen to start baking.  Pulling out the ingredients, I started to combine them in the mixing bowl I received as wedding gift: 2 cups of flour, ½ cup of sugar, ½ tbsp baking powder, ½ tsp salt.

‘Oh no!  Where did that sugar come from?’ I panicked, as my eyes scrolled over the page.  I had been looking at the wrong recipe.  This one did not have any sugar.  ‘Way to go, champ!’ I thought.  ‘I knew I should have taken the time to put in my contacts first!’

Carefully I surveyed the damage and gingerly began to scoop out the sugar.  ‘A little bit can’t hurt, right?’ I tried to comfort myself.  In order to get as much sugar as possible, I scooped out the baking powder and salt too, and then added a little less than the recipe called for in case there was a little residue still.

Taking a deep breath, I continued mixing the ingredients: baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg…

‘Nutmeg?  I don’t have any nutmeg,’ I thought, scrambling through my spice rack.  ‘Nope.  Hmmm…well, I’ll just add more cinnamon.  That should be fine, right?’

Moving down the list I added 2 eggs, sugar…

“What!  There is sugar after all?” I audibly exclaimed, throwing up my hands in frustration.

The clock rang signally that I had fifty-five minutes until I needed to leave for work.  The bread was supposed to bake for an hour, and I did not even have all the ingredients mixed yet.  Hurriedly I threw in the rest of them, mixed it together, greased the pan (yes, at least I remembered that much!), and put it in the oven with forty-five minutes to go.  Running to the shower, I started getting ready for work.

For the next forty-five minutes I constantly glanced at the clock to gauge my progress and when I was ready to go and I still had nine minutes to spare, I gave myself a mental high-five and decided to scrub the tub.  When the timer rang, I had my shoes and coat on, my purse over my arm and a Ziploc bag ready to bring my slice to work.  To my horror, however, I watched the beautiful golden surface cave in when my knife sliced into the still gooey middle.

“Fantastic!” I moaned, putting the empty Ziploc bag back in the cupboard.  Moping, I grabbed some crackers from the pantry.  “I guess I’ll have these for breakfast instead!”

I contemplated putting the bread back in the oven with the oven turned off, but the image of flames consuming my apartment flashed through my mind, so I settled for quickly wrapping it with aluminum foil and ‘dealing with the mess after work.’

Thus, I killed my dream of banana nut bread this morning.  I could claim that it was solely do to not wearing my contacts or that it was too early in the morning for any normal human being to be baking, but I shall refrain, for an hour ago, when relating the story to my friend, she eagerly volunteered to give me some baking lessons, so that’s great!  I certainly need them to avoid further disasters.  And my tub is clean!  And I laughed at myself today, which I need to enjoy doing more often.  And hopefully my story made you smile.  Consequently, one breakfast failure equals win for the day!