coriander in pho

Yes, the recipe is what’s on the title.

We had this three ripe bananas at home, and as you all know about bananas, no one would like it ripe. I decided to do what folks usually do: Turn it to muffin or cake.

Baking is NEVER my forte. I hate baking, even. Baking is all about preciseness with little room for error. That’s why I enjoy cooking more because I can literally yeehaw-ed shallots and garlics the hell out of my food pantries. “Preciseness” and my name should not be in one sentence.

Anyway, we had bananas. And some dates. So I decided to make muffins, and I came upon this beautiful recipe: Banana and Date Muffin.

Before I started, you know that joke among food bloggers/cooking bloggers on how they share their recipe then someone else made it with ENTIRELY different ingredients and methods and called the original recipe awful? Alright, this story, fortunately, ended well (spoiler!)

So, I was on that recipe, yeah. Then I realized:

• I don’t have muffin pan. I swear I have one but I couldn’t find it anywhere. A sign for me to reorganize my kitchen.
• I don’t have all-purpose flour. I have flour specifically for cookies.

Also, I’m not too keen with coconut oil. Coconut oil, for me, is for cooking.

So I did what I’m super good at: Butchered a recipe. Basically, the only thing I followed from the original recipe was the measurements for the flour, baking soda (which, I realized I don’t have baking soda so I used baking powder instead ARE THOSE TWO THE SAME THING OR NOT?) and salt.

So yeah, this is my recipe:

• 1 cup of cookie flour
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
• 3 ripe bananas, mashed
• 5-7 dates, pitted
• 1 large egg
• 1 tablespoon of brown sugar. I use less sugar because it already has banana and dates in it.
• Uhhhhh, 1/2 block of butter? Hold on, not exactly 1/2 block, but like… 175 grams-ish of butter? 180 grams? One block is 250 gram, and I have been using some for omelettes and whatnots, and, uh, yeah. Anyway! Butter. Melted.

How to make:

• Preheat the oven to 350°F or 170-180°C.
• In a medium or big bowl, depending on your comfort level handling flour/mixing things, mixed the mashed banana, melted butter, egg, and vanilla extract. I didn’t use mixer here as I was too lazy. I used fork instead.
• Pour in the dry ingredients: Flour, baking powder, pitted dates, salt, and sugar.
• Pour the mix into bread pan (you know, that square-ish pan.) I hate to grease and flour the pan (too lazy and I’m too messy) so I just used baking parchment. Put it in the oven for 20-25 minutes.

And what do you know! IT WORKS. Well, at least for me. The texture reminds me of chewy chocolate chip cookies, my favorite type of cookies. Not too crumbly and soft. The cake is not too sweet, which I like.

No aesthetic pics because really, I can’t be bothered. I BAKED, FOLKS. IT TOOK 95% OF MY ENTIRE ENERGY OF THE DAY.