Celebrating Women’s Day and my first Award with Choconutty Banana Bread

Happy Women's Day to all you lovely ladies! May you all be blessed with health, happiness and wealth. Please feel free to use the above plaque in your blog to bring a smile on the face of all visitors. I am elated on receiving my first award from Poornima Nair. This award will always remain very special to me as it is my first! Thanks a ton Poornima. You've brightened my day. This award comes with a responsibility. The responsibility to adhere to the norms as below:

"These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement (? big word, lol). Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

I would like to present this award to 8 fellow-bloggers who have always encouraged me through their comments and suggestions and request them to forward the chain.

1. Srivalli of http://cooking4allseasons.blogspot.com/
2. Sujatha of http://spicykhazana.blogspot.com/
3. Namrata of http://suruchifoods.blogspot.com/
4. Usha of http://veginspirations.blogspot.com/
5. Gayathri of http://justurs.blogspot.com/
6. Sia of http://www.monsoonspice.com/
7. Gayathri of http://myadigemane.blogspot.com/
8. Trupti of http://recipecenterforall.blogspot.com/

Two reasons to celebrate and what better way to do it than bake someting really nice. The last time I made banana bread it was a big hit with S. It got over in the blink of an eye! So I tried it again, but with a difference and the result was good. The bread was soft and tasted just perfect.

Ingredients:

• ½ cup softened butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• ½ cup oatmeal
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp vanilla essence
• 3-4 ripe bananas, mashed ( I used a blender)
• 2 cups maida
• 2 tsp cocoa powder
• 6 tbsp milk
• 3 tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp salt
• ¼ cup walnuts chopped

Method

STEP 1:

• Preheat the oven at 250* C for 10minutes.
• In a large bowl cream together sugar and butter and blend well till light and fluffy.
• Add eggs one at a time (blend well with each addition).
• Add vanilla essence and mashed banana and beat/blend to mix the content well.

STEP 2:

• In a separate large bowl sift together flour, baking powder, salt and oatmeal.
• Add the banana mixture into the above mixture and blend well.

STEP 3:

• Divide the prepared batter into two equal portions.
• Keep one portion of the batter as it is (plain).
• Add 2 tbsp cocoa powder to the other portion of the batter and mix well.
• Add 3 tbsps of milk to each of the two batters and stir well to smoothen both.

STEP 4:

• In a greased loaf pan/cake tin pour the plain batter and let it spread evenly by itself (do not do it manually).
• Sprinkle the chopped walnuts on the top layer.
• Pour the chocolate batter on top of the nuts, let it sit.
• Bake for 50- 60 minutes, or till a knife pierced comes out clean.

All the pics here are my entries to Gayathri's Magnificient Click Contest http://justurs.blogspot.com/2009/02/magnificent-click-contest-2009.html