by Shelley Budd
I typed out a quick list of must-have items for this weekend’s Sasquatch festival, and after, scanned through it and located a major typo. Instead of Hat, I’d mistakenly added a treacherous E on the end, leaving Hate as a must-pack item between earplugs and extra TP! Hate will most certainly not be attending the festival alongside me and my black sun hat. In fact, the complete opposite is what I’ll be hauling over the border to magical music land – Javanana Bread! That is: Coffee-Infused Banana Bread.

I love baked goods. Baked goods are Love. When you share a delicious homemade treat with someone, rainbows appear over crystal mountaintops and it snows glitter in Greenland. Now that’s happiness. Packed with the favorite fruit of our monkey friends and topped with good-for-us walnuts, you’d be nuts not to pack this along with you on your next road trip or lunch break. It’s 5 steps and a great use for the morning coffee you didn’t finish.

*I hand-beat the mixture, since working your arms out for a hot, fresh treat makes a better bread by kilometers, than a machine-mixed “badder.” Besides…I don’t actually have an electric mixer. So, if you’re luckier than I on this point, you can decide whether your bread will be mixed by muscley-mama love or the cold, impersonal churn of a robot.

Ingredients
1 ½ cups it’s-better-with-butter
1 ¾ cups packed brown sugar
4 eggs
3 tsp vanilla extract
4 cups whole-wheat flour
1 tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp nutmeg
2 overflowing cups banana
1 cup black-as-night coffee
½ cup crushed walnuts
+ some sesame seeds

(1) Get your oven to 350 degrees. Grease up a cake pan with butter and sprinkle sesame seeds over it, coating the bottom. (This is a heffer recipe, so it will fill a big pan.)
(2) Combine Coffee and Bananas, smoosh’m with a fork, then leave to soak together.
(3) In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar. Add each egg individually and mix well in between. When batter is fluffy, add vanilla.
(4) Sift together dry ingredients. Add them to butter mixture bit by bit, alternating with adding banana mixture. (Begin and end with dry ingredients).
(5) The Final Step!! Pour the batter into your pan, throw some sliced banana, brown sugar and walnuts on top, bake for about 50 minutes or until a stick comes out clean.

Ok. I lied. There’s a sixth step. Share that sucker!

I just made it to double check the recipe, and wow. If you could bottle a smell…one that isn’t already a perfume…then Javanana Bread when it’s baking would be the #1 top seller – it’s like a butter pillow stuffed with creamy & soft banana-sugar. I just dig my face into it.

(recipe inspired by Moosewood)