Best Banana Bread Recipe from Pinterest

This is seriously, by far, the best banana bread I've ever had. I would have taken a picture of it, but it was so good that it was gone within minutes after baking it. Yeah, it was THAT good. 

I came across this recipe on good ol' Pinterest (Where else does anyone find great recipes these days, ha), and why did I choose it out of all the other millions of banana bread recipes? Well, because... Look at the title. "The BEST Banana Bread".. I couldn't not try it! I had to figure out if it was really "the best". And let me tell you.. it is. 

I will definitely be repeating this recipe many, many times. Vaughn is already asking when I'll make it again, so I think I'll be repeating it quite soon! 

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup oil

2 eggs

1 cup mashed ripe bananas

1/2 cup sour cream

1 tsp. vanilla

1 1/2 cup flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour bottom only of a loaf pan (or use 3 small loaf pans).  In large bowl, beat together sugar and oil.  Add eggs, bananas, sour cream and vanilla; blend well.  Lightly spoon flour into measuring cup; level off.  Add flour, baking soda and salt; stir just until dry ingredients are moistened.   Pour into prepared pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes (about 40 minutes for smaller loaf pan) or until toothpick inserted in center comes clean.  Cool 5 minutes; remove from pan.  Cool completely.  Wrap tightly and store in refrigerator.  Makes 1 loaf.

And voile! Delicious banana-y goodness for you to enjoy, and lust for. I'm actually making some more of this today! As well as trying out a new coffee cake recipe.. Why, you ask? Because of the title.. of course, "Best Coffee Cake Ever." 

That "best" does me in every time! Happy baking! :-)

xo, Jess.

DIY foodprint stones

I was going to write this post yesterday, since that's when I started the project, but it took a little longer than expected. It's a great project though, and super easy! It's to make your own footprint (or handprint) stones! All it takes is 3 simple ingredients and 3 hours cooking time! You can do this with your baby, toddler, or even with your pets if you want. I am definitely going to be doing this project again soon, for the grandparents Christmas presents.

And for the record, this is not my project. I found it on the fantastic site, Pinterest. I just figured I'd share it on here and show my results, in case anyone else wanted to do it! 

So here's what you need:
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup water 

Mix all the ingredients together (the mix will be really sticky, just a heads up!). Keep folding it together until it creates a dough like substance. The dough will be gritty.

Then once it's in dough form, just make it into whatever shape you want. Then bake it at 200 degrees. 

I made a heart, and it actually came out rather well. This was a practice one (Note the cracked and bumps in it), but I will definitely be doing this again. 

One thing I did notice is that mine took a lot longer than 3 hours. It took about....8-ish. But that's because I made mine a little too thick. I found that if you flip it once the top is nice and hard, it'll harden the back rather quickly. (I figured that out after I had gone about 7 hours).

But yeah, that's all there is to it! I plan on making handprint ones as well as more footprint ones for Christmas gifts. Just poke a hole in the top and then you can hang them on the wall. I think it'd be pretty neat to do a handprint of mom, dad and baby on one too. So there's endless possibilities. I hope you try it! 

xo, Jess.