Last week was all about apple butter, this week is all about black sesame butter. Because I realized I still have some in my pantry from a while ago, and I should use it up. So I threw together this black sesame banana bread and used up 1/4 cup of it! The banana isn’t too strong in this, so it wasn’t competing too much for flavor attention. I also didn’t add chocolate chips to this! Which I usually do with banana bread. And it was still good, which I think is a testament to its quality.
This bread is great warmed up with a bit of butter. Like all good banana bread, really. But I’m just saying -it’s nice to enjoy it uncomplicated way, since it’s got some interesting flavors to it. It’s not a run of the mill banana bread.
For context before this short little tangent, I randomly watched this short the other day, and it was very cute. It’s about a mouse that wants to grow up to be an adult, but then learns to enjoy being a kid. Adorable animation and story, but honestly… Not super relatable! I never once wanted to be an adult when I was a kid. Not once! I was never in a rush to grow up. I would occasionally want to be one or two years older – so I could join in with my siblings on something. But never did I think “I wish I were an adult.” I couldn’t not imagine wanting that as a kid. Adults went to work! Adults paid bills! Adults paid taxes! I didn’t get what taxes were, but I was in no rush to start paying them. Nuh-uh.
I never had that notion that some children get that somehow being and adult was just like being a kid. I had no doubts that adulthood meant responsibility. I never saw an adult eat all the candy they wanted or watch TV all day. They were doing adult stuff all day and they all told me candy was bad for me.
So, this was an entirely unrelatable short, even if it was cute. Chock-full of all the lessons I never needed to learn as a kid.
However, it was fresh in my mind a few days later. And it connected in my mind with another video from the internet (pardon the language) while I cut myself a slice of this banana bread at 10am after my morning meeting.
So much of my adult life thus far, my childhood self would probably not comprehend. (Namely, working remotely and often not actually having work to do.) But, inspired by the two videos, I compiled this quick list of the pros and cons that my younger self would understand:
Cons of being an adult: Meetings! The grind! Working!
Pros of being an adult: you can eat banana bread at 10am on a Tuesday while you do the work.
Sure, I could eat banana bread on a Tuesday morning before school as a kid, but they wouldn’t let me eat the banana bread in the middle of second period! So, eating banana bread whenever I want is exerting some adulthood free will! And it makes work not so bad!
I also am writing this as I watch the hit 2011 film Gnomeo and Juliet. On a Wednesday night! Free will! A bit of random free will, but… free will nonetheless! Is that not adulthood or what? You have to make it good by exerting free will! Which is what the mouse in the short wanted to do… he just didn’t realize you can do that as a child too.
So cheers to beating the adulthood grumbles by making and eating banana bread simply because you can. It’s not eating candy all day and watching cartoons. I would argue it’s better. And childhood me would 100% have chosen banana bread over candy too.
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PinIngredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- Just under 1 cup milk
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1 ripe banana, mashed with a fork
- 1/4 cup black sesame butter
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F. Line a loaf pan with parchment, or grease with vegetable oil.
- In a small saucepan, brown the 1/2 cup unsalted butter. Remove from the heat and pour into a large mixing bowl to cool.
- To the brown butter, add the 1 cup sugar. Add the 1 egg to a liquid measuring cup and then add milk to make one cup. Add this to the mixing bowl with the butter and sugar. Whisk well. Then add the 1 ripe banana, mashed with a fork, and whisk until everything is well combined.
- Finally, fold in the flour, baking soda, and salt. Stop folding when there are still a few streaks of dry flour left.
- Separate 1 cup of the batter to a smaller bowl, and mix in the black sesame butter until incorporated.
- For the other ⅔ of the batter, fold until there are no dry streaks of flour left.
- Pour some of the brown butter batter into the prepared loaf pan, then dollop on some of the black sesame batter evenly on top. Alternate the two different batters, and swirl with a knife id you’d like.
- When all the batter has been used, bake for 45-60 minutes, until the loaf is risen and golden brown on top, and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Let cool in the pan before removing.