Banana bread from the microwave

They say that necessity is the mother of all invention. And in our case, it certainly is true. This year, we were lucky enough to score a kitchen. The bad news is however, that few kitchens in Korea come with an oven. Don't ask me why. I cannot explain Korea or Korean culture any better than I can explain the inner workings of a space shuttle. But even a rocket scientist would be boggled by Korea (in my opinion at least.) So the kitchens are oven-less. So what? So what! That means no baking- no cookies, no cakes, no homemade french fries. Nada from the oven. Unless you get creative. And we got creative peeps.

Some of you may know my inability to throw things away. From this internal electrical brain mis-firing comes lots and lots of banana bread. Why? Because I hardly ever am able to finish a batch of bananas before they brown, and when they are brown, lets face it, I don't want to eat it. But I can make it into banana bread. But without an oven, at least an oven which is near at hand (because there is an oven on campus that I have yet to learn how to use as it is in Korean and quite a walk) we learned to make banana bread in a microwave. In a mug. That's right, I said in the microwave and in a mug. Plus it takes very little time. I feel like an info-mercial.

About two minutes is all it takes. Compare 45 minutes - 1 hour in the oven or two minutes in a microwave? Crazy yet ingenious!

The oven version is considerably better but non-the-less, if you want banana bread in a jiffy, the microwave provides. I changed the recipe a few times, once smashing up a tim tam (chocolate cookie), once only using honey and brown sugar instead of any regular sugar and once using butter instead of oil. I can't remember what really worked except that the tim tam made the bread so good! What can I say, chocolate makes everything taste better.

4 T. flour
2 T. sugar
2 T. brown sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. baking soda
1 egg
2 T. vegetable oil
1/2 mashed banana
1 T. chopped pecans (optional)

In a large microwaveable mug, fully blend flour, sugars, salt, baking powder & baking soda. Add egg until all the dry ingredients are incorporated. Stir in oil, then banana, then nuts. Pop into the microwave 1-1/2 minutes to 3 minutes, depending on your microwave. (Just don’t overcook when you are cooking in the microwave, or you’ll have sponge cake.)

Let me know if you try it out. Also, if you have any other microwave recipes, we would LOVE it if you would share them with us :)