banana bread

Saturday I decided to bake bread. My life is too insane this week and next to mess around with creative, time-intensive meals, so I thought it would be good to have some extra easy carbs lying around the house.

A friend of mine gave me a fantastic banana bread recipe for regular flour. How do I know it's fantastic? Only because she told me so, since I couldn't sample her gluten-containing bread.

I won't get into the details of how I converted the recipe to gluten-free (if you want a hint, check out this post from Something in Season; I've used this method several times and it works like a charm!) but I did and began mixing. Coconut milk and eggs and honey and the most amazing (but expensive) brown rice flour and mashed bananas...I was thoroughly enjoying myself and looking forward to making some pumpkin-walnut-raisin bread, too.

Before finishing the batter, I turned the oven on to let it heat. To my dismay, 10 minutes later, when the batter was poured in loaf pans lined with parchment paper (easier cleanup!) the oven was still only warm to the touch. "That's odd," I thought. "Maybe it needs to be turned up higher." Not one to waste time, I turned it up to the broil setting. Another 15 minutes passed and the oven was still cool enough to touch (maybe 100-150 degrees). I turned it off and turned it on again, but to no avail. The oven wouldn't heat!

Imagine my dismay; gluten-free baking doesn't come cheap, and I didn't have that much time to waste. I wanted that banana bread! I've heard that bread batter keeps in the fridge for a few days so, praying the rule applied to gluten-free bread batter, I wrapped my two loaves tightly in plastic wrap and called my landlord.

To make a long story short (because this is getting to be too drawn out!), the cost to repair my very old oven is about the same or more than the cost of a brand new oven, so we're getting a new oven tomorrow! Plus, I called a friend from work and asked her to bake my loaves (still praying the refrigerator rule works for GF bread!) and wonder of wonders, the rule applies! I had several slices of wonderfully-moist, tastebud-tantalizing banana bread today at work. It was perfectly lovely.

All of that to say: I'm very happy to be getting a new oven, even happier my bread wasn't ruined and happiest of all to report that if you have celiac or just choose not to eat gluten-containing grains, GF bread batter (at least the quick bread kind) keeps in the fridge.

Thank God for banana bread. :)