Lemony Olive Oil Banana Bread

Just can't stay away...

Yup, I'm back on the banana bread kick! And as you can see from my color choices, I made this around Christmas; I just haven't really felt like writing about it until now.

This delicious-sounding recipe came from the popular blog 101 Cookbooks. The blog's author, Heidi Swanson, released her second cookbook in 2011 as well.

I say delicious-sounding because I love anything with lemon and I love olive oil cakes. Add in chocolate and banana and I thought this would be a home run. Much to my taste buds' chagrin, it wasn't.

Part of my problem is that I have never, repeat, never, been able to cook a quick bread in a 9x5 inch pan in the time suggested in a recipe. Never, in my entire life. I always have to reduce the temperature and cook for an additional 10-20 minutes to get the center cooked. The result is that the bread usually dries out and the edges end up overcooked. Now, maybe if I cooked the bread at a lower temperature for the entire time, I would have a more evenly cooked bread. And perhaps I will try that with my next recipe. Honestly, I always just hope that with each new recipe I try I will have better results.

This particular bread was great when it came out of the oven: the top was nice and crunchy and the inside moist and lemony. By day two it was dry and unappealing. You can see that I didn't make the glaze to drizzle over the bread; mainly out of laziness, but also because I knew I wasn't going to eat the whole thing in one day.

So I guess I will keep trying!