Roasted Banana Pumpkin Hooky Bread

Today was a gorgeous day. So gorgeous, in fact, that this morning I received this email from my boss:

Re: Carpe diem
Katherine,
I'm not going to go in to the office today, and if you'd rather stay home, feel free. When the temperature hits the 70s on a Tuesday in November, I think it may be a sign to relax.

Huzzah!, said I. An officially sanctioned day of hooky, three overripe bananas, and an impulse-buy can of coldpack pumpkin in the pantry. It was obviously a baking day.

I started with this recipe for Roast Banana-Pumpkin Bread from 101 Cookbooks. By which I mean, I stole the idea of roasting the bananas in the oven. Almost nothing else is the same.

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A Variation on the Roast Banana-Pumpkin Bread Theme

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Place on a cookie sheet:
3 ripe bananas
(By ripe, I mean banana-bread ripe. Black. Squishy. Gross. That kind of ripe.)
The original recipe says to bake the bananas with the skins on. I read that part of the recipe after I'd already removed the skins, so I roasted 'em naked. Do whichever seems easier. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until they brown a little and ooze mysterious banana juices.

Meanwhile, mix together and set aside:
4 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

In another bowl, cream:
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between eggs.

By now, your bananas should be out of the oven, and cooling. Mash them with:
3/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk
2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup coldpack canned pumpkin

Add half of the banana pumpkin goo and blend thoroughly on low speed. Then add half of the flour mixture and mix until combined. Continue until all the ingredients wind up in one bowl.

Pour into two greased loaf pans. Bake for about an hour, or until a toothpick poked in the middle comes out clean.

***
Consume at 3:00 p.m. on a Tuesday, while sitting in the sun.


UPDATE: This bread was insanely good a couple days later, toasted, and smeared with lox cream cheese.