Banana Cherry Bread — Recipe and Questions

The Recipe

Slightly modified from Alton Brown, I'm Just Here for More Food

Wet Ingredients 1
3 to 4 / 340g / 12oz Overripe Bananas
1 Cup / 210g / 7.5oz Sugar

Wet Ingredients 2
1/2 Cup /4oz Vegetable oil (original called for 1 stick butter, melted and cooled)
2 large / 100g / 3.5 oz Eggs
1 tsp / 6g/ .25oz Vanilla extract

Dry Ingredients
2 cups / 255g / 9oz All-Purpose Flour
1 tsp / 6g / .25oz Baking Soda
1 tsp / 6g / .25oz Salt

Frozen Cherries, approximately 1 - 1-1/2 cups (whatever looks good to you!)



Directions

• Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in center of oven.2. Grease loaf pan.
• Place bananas and sugar in a large mixing bowl and mash them together with a potato masher until smooth (I used my mixer with the beater attachment).
• Combine Wet Ingredients 1 in separate bowl, then add to sugar/banana mixture.
• Combine Dry Ingredients in separate bowl. Add combined Wet Ingredients to Dry mixing until just combined.
• Fold in cherries and pour into prepared pan.
• Bake for 50 min or 1 hour until toothpick comes out more or less clean.
• Cool in pan for 15 minutes then turn out onto a rack. Cool completely before slicing.

The Verdict

Very good! Flavorful and moist and I love having the cherries in there. It's a unexpected but welcome change from regular banana bread. But it could be better.

I have a few questions I wanted to ask you guys what you think.

As you can see from the photo, the edges got over done. I kept checking the loaf and it was never going to hit the temp Alton called for (210°F) and it was still a bit wet on the toothpick, so I let it cook longer. Should I have pulled it out sooner? It cooked for over 1 hour.

Also, I didn't have the full amount of bananas and therefore less volume of wet ingredients. If I'd cut back on the flour would that have helped with the cooking time and doneness issues? Could the batter have been too dense?

I still have problems judging baking times with quick bread and tend to err on the side of over done to avoid a raw center. Any tips you might have would be greatly appreciated!

Photography Etiquette Question — How to Shoot at a Place of Business?

A planned trip to the blueberry farm turned into an unplanned trip to a produce stand.

I brought my camera along to take shots of Dwight and his mom picking berries as well of shots of the berries and location. I was comfortable with that. It's outdoors, very casual, and a place where people wouldn't hesitate to take a snapshot or two.



Since the blueberry farm was closed for the season — something we discovered when pulling up to the farm entrance — we decided to head to a local, large-scale farm stand. This isn't a side-of-the-road kind of stand, more like a regular shop. I felt rather uncomfortable taking photos there but couldn't pass up the opportunity of shooting all of the vivid fruits and veggies. I began to wonder about how other people handle these situations.



I've seen gorgeous images from other bloggers taken at farmer's markets and the like and thought I'd pose these questions:

What is the etiquette for taking photos in a public place of business? Do you ask permission? Do you ask each stall owner if you're at a farmer's market? Do you feel odd shooting at these kinds of places?



Due to my uncertainty, the composition of the photos is lackluster, some of the shots are out of focus, and depth of field is not ideal because I didn't bother messing with camera settings. I was too nervous and felt like I needed to be stealthy about it.

I know part of my feelings of unease have to do with feeling self-conscious. Letting that go would be a first step, but what about what is proper?


Help me out — what do YOU do in these situations? Let me know in the comments, share your stories and blog posts. I'd love to hear about your experiences!