Mixing It Up

I'm spending December at my parents' house, affectionately known as "The One-Four-Four-Eight."

Don't be misled by the ostentatious jewelry that is in my possesion. I am still Megan from the cul-de-sac.

But I digress.

There are many nice things about staying at home, not least of which is having an entire month off work. I have nothing to do but decorate, work out, decorate, and cook. And decorate. Well, the decorating is pretty much done (pictures forthcoming), so in between workouts, I've started to do some baking. Since my mom is in the middle of "The Cookie Making 2009," she has her mixer sitting out on the counter 24-7.

Staring at me.

Taunting me.

Reminding me I've never used a stand-mixer before.

Suggesting in dulcet tones that I lacked the kitchen werewithal to successfully use a stand mixer.



Now I'm not one to be bullied by inanimate objects, even those who make compelling arguments, so I grabbed the rotting bananas from the kitchen table, walked my ten paces, and prepared to do battle with mixer.

Unfortunately for my ego, it did not dawn on me until I put most of the ingredients in the mixer's bowl that the recipe I had did not actually need to be mixed. In fact, one of the instructions explicitly reads, "do not over mix." Sigh. So much for blaming my kitchen ineptitude on the crap-tacular-ness of my apartment's kitchen.

Needlessly Mixed Banana-Raspberry Bread

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 overripe bananas
1/4 cup rice milk
1 egg worth of Ener-G egg replacer
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (Note: my mom purchased some kick-ass vanilla-bean paste that I used instead. It's concentrated and delicious and expensive-but-worth-it if you can find it)
1 pint carton of fresh raspberries

Mix all the dry ingredients in a mixer bowl.
In a seperate bowl, mash the bananas together with the milk, egg-replacer, and vanilla.
While the mixer is running on low, add the wet mixture to the dry.

**Note: Here's where I just mixed the hell out of the batter because running the mixer on high is very fun. According to the original recipe, the wet and dry are to be mixed until "just combined." I leave it up to your discretion. End**

Remove the bowl from the mixer stand and fold in the raspberries, stirring gently to evenly distribute without smooshing up the berries too much.
Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees for an hour. Let cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Despite the overmixing, the bread was deliciously sweet/sour.

And it totally put that mouthy mixer in its place.