Banana bread with chocolate and crystallized ginger

This book by Molly Wizenberg has finally caught my attention. Apparently she's already been famous around the culinary blogosphere for a while now, and for some reason the contagious enthusiasm about her story and recipes had not reached me, until "A Homemade Life" was given to me by my brother and sister in law (thank you!).

I had to warm up to her style of writing over a couple of pages, but now I'm all in. Her description of the perfect french toast was already rather tempting, and she finally convinced me to swing my wooden spoon with her recipe of banana bread. Apart from the crystallized ginger, which is a little difficult to find around here (but was easy to make from scratch and gave me the "I did it all by myself" satisfactory feeling), it was all mixed together with little effort. And I didn't even need a mixer. Call me oldschool, but I love to bake cakes the traditional way and adore recipes that work without electrical equipment (apart from the stove, naturally). Plus, it's a nice workout for your biceps.

Molly's instructions are easy to follow, and something I am very fond of is the lack of pictures in her book. You won't be so caught up in your eagerness trying to achieve the same result as shown in professionally taken pictures of carefully arranged dishes. You'll just want to get started, and mess around in the kitchen.

"These days, I bake banana bread all the time, and I usually do it as Glenn did, with chocolate and ginger. It's homey but a little sophisticated, and it's almost impossible to stop eating. The flavours of banana and chocolate get along so well, and ginger makes them even better, cutting through their richness with its spicy heat. It's the kind of thing that begs to be cut into big, melty slices while the loaf is still hot."

Right she is.


PS: Don't forget to enter my giveaway, it's up until tomorrow!