I got into food blogging in a kind of backwards way. I had never even read a food blog before, but I had the opportunity to blog for Taste of Nova Scotia. I felt like I needed to figure out how to blog about food double quick – before my first assignment was due.
I am a researcher at heart. When I was a kid, during the summer months I would identify research projects that I wanted to complete while I was out of school. I remember spending summer evenings in the air conditioned library huddled over books learning about Marie Curie, Greece, and other oddly chosen topics.
So. When it came to learning about food blogging, I like to think I went about the task thoroughly and systematically. As I waded through the millions and millions of food blogs that everyone and their iPhone had thrown together, a few stood out. One of them was Molly Wizenburg’s Orangette. It was her writing that helped me to figure out how I wanted to write about food: in stories, not just recipes.
One of the first recipes I tried from her blog was this one for chocolate and candied ginger banana bread. It takes plain old banana bread and makes it over-the-top decadent.
Here’s what you need:
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 ripe medium-size bananas
3 tbsp milk
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 cup chocolate chips
Small chunks of candied ginger, to taste
Here’s what you do:
Preheat your oven to 350F.
In a mixing bowl, cream the sugar, egg, and butter. In a separate bowl, mash bananas; then mix with milk. In another separate bowl (hopefully the people who eat your bread will be so inspired by its’ deliciousness that they will help you do the dishes) whisk together flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Add flour mixture to butter mixture in three parts, alternating with banana-milk mixture in two parts, stirring by hand until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips and ginger.
Turn batter into a greased loaf pan and bake for one hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Adapted from Orangette
