Adventures in Banana Bread

Umm...should banana bread 'glisten'?

Banana bread - it seems like everyone has made it at some point in their lives. Who hasn't had leftover bananas that are too ripe for eating (at least for me - I despise even one brown spot on my nanners.  EWWW)?

Well, I am that one person - until today.  So I can forgive myself for not knowing an 'iffy' recipe when I see it, right?

I really enjoy cooks.com - it's incredibly easy to use and most recipes (the key word here being most) are really fantastic.  Unfortunately, I ran across one today that missed the boat completely, and I, being a banana bread neophyte, was too naive to catch the error.

As I was mixing the ingredients for the bread, everything SEEMED normal.  Okay, so two sticks of butter seemed like a lot but I knew the batter was for two loaves of bread, so no harm done.  And when the bread was baking I thought I'd died and gone to heaven; the smell was that wonderful.

It was only when I took the loaves out of the oven and had to drain the butter off  that I noticed something was, oh, I don't know, a bit odd.

After I returned from an errand, I figured I should probably try the bread.  At this point it had been cooling for about an hour and a half.  It was cooled, all right, but all of that butter made for some rather crispy edges.  So crispy, in fact, that they had the consistency of potato chips (but I think chips are less greasy).  The middle of the loaf looks normal, but it probably contains a week's worth of saturated fat.  You know that something is fattening when the chocolate chips are the healthiest thing about it.    As it is, I had a very thin slice and can feel the begining of a coronary. 

So, if you don't hear from me for a few days you'll know that the bread is to blame.  I can think of worse ways to go.  :D