You may be familiar with Suzanne Beecher as the author/editor of the Dear Reader web site, where she runs a number of online book clubs, offering the first 2 or 3 chapters of the featured book, so you can ”try it before you buy it.” There’s the Breakfast Club which gives a daily dose, Read It First for new fiction, and Penguin Classics.
Suzanne is also the author of the recently published memoir Muffins & Mayhem. She was inspired to write the book in response to a letter from one of her readers. The letter-writer was a 43-year-old woman who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer; she wanted to leave a scrapbook legacy for her three young children, and asked Suzanne for advice.
Suzanne’s suggestion was to create a recipe box, filled not only with family recipes, but with stories, advice, traditions, etc. As Suzanne wrote this advice, she realized that she had been creating her own “recipe box” of memories for years; Muffins & Mayhem is the formalization of her “celebration of food, friends, and family.” The website invites readers to “Tell a story, share a recipe, and create a cookbook of recipes …”
One chapter, “In-a-Pickle,” contains family stories that Suzanne likes to re-read when she’s taking life a bit too seriously and she needs to lighten up; they’re funny (sometimes embarrassing) little anecdotes that probably get wilder with each re-telling. This recipe for “Whoops! Banana Bread” came about when she was juggling too many things at once and mis-read the amount of baking powder and buttermilk required in her recipe. Happily, the results were delicious, and she has replicated it for us here:
Suzanne’s Whoops! Banana Bread
- Ingredients:
- 1 1/4 mashed very ripe bananas (the riper or browner the bananas are, the better the bread will taste)
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/4 cups buttermilk
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/4 cup vegetable shortening
- 2 eggs
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 cup (overflowing) chopped walnuts
- 1/2 cup chocolate chips
- Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Grease bottom only of either a 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan or four small mini pans.
- Beat all ingredients together, scraping bowl, just until blended.
- Pour into pan(s).
- Say “Whoops!” before you pop it in the oven and 50 to 60 minutes later, if you’re baking one loaf, or 35 minutes for four smaller loaves, you’ll be biting into a tasty, moist slice of banana bread
- Be sure to bake until a wooden toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center.
- Immediately remove the bread from the pans after you take them out of the oven.
- And you really should cool the bread on a wire rack before you slice into it, but that never happens at my house.
Sounds delicious, doesn’t it?!? I can imagine the smell of this bread baking … Mmmm ….
See what else is happening in the kitchens of the blogosphere this weekend. Check out Beth Fish Reads’ Weekend Cooking to find links to other food-related posts. There may be book reviews, recipes, kitchen gadget tips and tricks …
I have eaten many a whoops meal. Some not so good as others have been. I love banana bread! She made a really tasty mistake.
Oh the ole whoops recipe! Yes, I’ve done it. And warm bread of any sort disappears quickly around here.
that does seem like a lot of baking power, doesn’t it? but hey, if it works…!
I can’t wait to read the book! My whoops recipes never turn out any good.
I bet many great recipes, not to mention products were discovered by whoopses. In fact, that’s how the microwave was developed. So I say hurray for whoopses!
I love to make banana bread/muffins but I’ve never put that much baking powder in. Now I have to try this recipe just to see how it tastes. Sounds like a lovely book.
What a wonderful idea! Lord knows we all wish my grandmother had been able to document her pierogi recipe! It was very very vague (a bit of butter, some flour … you should know it when you feel it). And no one has ever been able to make them quite like her since!
Nicole – this chapter of the book can really lift your spirits – not only cooking mistakes (which turn out happily), but Suzanne tells of the time she got a chandelier earring caught between her teeth; so funny!
Beth F – yes, sweet or savory, those loaves don’t last long.
caite – I’m curious to try it.
Kathy – even if one of mine was salvageable (or even, GOOD!), I don’t know that I’d be able to duplicate it so it was as tasty the second time.
rhapsody – I agree with you! Wasn’t Play-Doh originally intended to remove wallpaper paste (or invented in the process of trying to create a wallpaper paste remover?)
Margot – her reminiscences are sweet, and she shares the the mother who wrote her DID make recipe boxes full of advice and memories for her children.
Jenners – yes, or you get a vague instruction “cook it until it’s the color of the curtains” (huh!??)
Muffins and Mayhem looks like a wonderful read! What a great cover. And yummy recipes too? Count me in
Oh, I like the sound of this book! I think the recipe box tradition would be a great thing to start myself. It would be nice to give it to my daughter when she goes off to her own family!! Great review, and thanks for including the recipe!!
I think this might just be the perfect recipe for me to try this weekend. I have some overripe bananas sitting on my counter begging me to make some banana bread with them. I love the idea of this book and creating a cookbook of recipes and memories. So cute! I’ll have to think about starting on my own.
Sheila – it’s a nice little memoir/recipes/anecdotes
zibilee – there’s an interactive part of her website that lets you create a recipe box of memories (I haven’t fully explored it … I need to get past this end-of-school year busyness, then I’ll be back!)
Jennifer – if you can’t use the over-ripe bananas right away, peel them and freeze them in a ziploc.