The recipe for the banana bread seen in J’s previous post is from the Cook’s Illustrated cookbook (not sure what year, but it’s kinda old).
Banana Bread
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup toasted, coarsely chopped walnuts
3 very ripe, soft, darkly speckled large bananas, mashed well
1/4 cup plain yoghurt
2 large eggs
6 Tb butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla extract
Mix dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking soda, walnuts). Mix wet ingredients (banana, yoghurt, eggs, butter, vanilla). Mix wet and dry ingredients together until just combined. Batter should be thick.
Bake for ~55 min (knife inserted into center should come out clean) at 350°F in greased loaf pan.
Modifications
Of course there’s no way I would make a recipe straight.
First of all, I only had one banana (found abandoned on top of a trash can!! There was another, but it was a little too far gone for me to want to carry back home. Later, though, I regretted not taking it!), so I thirded the recipe.
We don’t keep all-purpose flour, so I replaced that with half whole wheat pastry flour and half oat bran (acquired for free on my local Freecycle!). We don’t keep yoghurt (since it comes in non-returnable packaging), so I replaced that with (homemade) kefir. I substituted chopped peanuts for the walnuts. And we don’t have a loaf pan, so I just used our Pyrex baking dish.
I added maybe a tablespoon cocoa powder, maybe 1/4-1/3 cup chocolate chips, and some cinnamon.
Because I thirded the recipe, I needed to reduce the baking time. I actually baked my banana bread for 25 min, but I don’t think it was completely done. But it’s still delicious!
You should also feel free to make modifications to recipes to accommodate the ingredients and equipment you have on hand, your taste preferences, etc.