Desperate times call for desperate measures.

As I write this, the banana protein bread is in the oven cooking. We’re at close to 28 minutes over the 17 to 20 minutes it was supposed to take. And it’s still not done. Yes, you could say I’m nervous.

Not because I have some kind of baking ego. This is the first thing I’ve ever baked, not counting frozen pizza. So I could care less how the world views my skills.

Cravings A-Go-Go

The reason I’ve even motivated myself to begin the baking is because of something that started last Wednesday morning… I was in a conference room at work with two others waiting for my other coworkers and boss to arrive for yet another meeting in the year-long redesign of the website of the state agency where I work. On the table in front of me was a stack of papers containing research of sites I liked. Resting on one of the chairs against the wall behind me was a plastic bag containing my usual food for the day: egg whites, grape tomatoes, deli turkey.

Then other coworkers started to arrive, carrying brown paper bags and plastic bags. That’s when I remembered that people were going to bring breakfast foods to the meeting, which was supposed to last all morning. I knew I would not get to eat any of it.

Then they started going through the bags, fixing their paper plates with donuts and breakfast burritos; their cups with orange juice. It was all I could do not to flip the conference table over and run out of the room screaming.

I’ve never been a vampire, nor do I believe in them. But in every vampire movie you get a good idea that the blood thirst is an all-consuming, life threatening pursuit. It was that sort of single-minded attention with which I watched my bastard co-workers put this food into their mouths. There was a clear plastic cup full of Krispy Creme donut holes that I stared at like it was an open flame. Finally I split off another personality to deal with the physical and psychological drama I was experiencing.

I hadn’t had cravings like this in weeks. I thought for sure I had conquered the cravings monster.

Later that day I sent Mariah and Sheryl, of Revelation Fitness, an email with the subject line “Cravings!” to explain what I went through that morning and what I had been going through over the previous few days.  Let’s just say it’s been stressful, both at work and personally. Normally in these situations, I head over to the convenience store across the street, grab a package of Keebler chocolate chip cookies or a pint of Blue Bell ice cream, and call it a night. That’s no longer an option.

Mariah talked me down off the ledge as she explained how my body was sort of rebelling at the loss of fat in my body and in my diet. She gave me tweaks to my diet I can make to lessen the cravings. Sheryl and Nicole, another member of the Revex team, sent me a bunch of healthy sweets recipes. And the one that I thought might be the easiest was the banana protein bread. How hard can it be? You mix the stuff then add heat. Piece of cake.

Baking for Idiots

I Googled “basics of baking” and came across some pretty interesting little tidbits of information. You need to mix the wet ingredients and the dry ingredients separately before mixing the two together. When you do mix them together, you should be careful not to overmix, whatever the hell that means.

Meanwhile, it looked like the wet ingredients tend to be mixed with a handheld mixer. What the heck is that? Oh, it’s the thing my mom used to use. I can’t remember what it was for, but my sister and I got to lick off whatever was left over when she was done using it while making a cake.

I texted a friend and asked her if, when she bakes, she mixes the ingredients by hand. “LOL No” was her response. So I called my mom. “Don’t you have one?” she asked. “Have we met?” I responded.

I haven’t thought about that piece of equipment in years and I sure as heck didn’t really know what my mom was doing with it. The handheld mixer to me is a lot like the equipment you see in the background of the workshops in American Choppers. There are all sorts of big, manly machines that I can only assume are used for making motorcycles. The handheld mixer is some kind of machinery, with exposed moving parts, I might add, that was somehow used to cook with. Turns out it’s used to mix the stuff that goes into stuff you bake. Who knew?

I put out a feeler to my Facebook friends asking for mixer recommendations. Most said a cheap one works just as fine as an expensive one. Another said KitchenAid was the way to go, as their products will last forever. One told of a cheap Black and Decker model that lasted her 19 years.

After my usual exhaustive search of Internet consumer reviews, I decided to go with a $20.99 Sunbeam from Bed Bath & Beyond. Then I went to HEB, and picked up most of the ingredients. Except for the oat flour. They had all sorts of different kinds of other flour. The Internet told me that oat flour was a pretty common form of flour. Someone please tell the folks over at HEB. I headed to Whole Foods, even more determined to conquer the baking monster I found in might sites. Alas, I found the oat flour I needed. It would appear that you can make flour out of just about anything you darn well please. They sell bags of tapioca flour. Truth.

It's Go Time

Anywho, I put off the actual baking until today, waiting for a block of a few hours when I knew I had nothing else going on.

I meticulously measured out the ingredients, proud as a pip that I knew how to use measuring spoons and measuring cups. My frozen pizza making experience taught me how to pre-head an oven, so that was no problem. I mixed the dry stuff with a spoon. Then I poured all the wet ingredients into a mixing bowl. That stuff really does look gross before it’s been mixed. Just sayin’.

I took out the handheld mixer from it’s packaging, jammed in the mixer spool thingies, and tested out the motor. Every one of the 5 speeds was smooth. So I set it to high and mixed the ingredients for a minute, per the Internet directions I was following.

I mixed wet and dry together slowly with a spoon, and suddenly it started to look like something my mom had made. I poured the mixture into the loaf baking pan I picked up, placed it in the oven and set my 17 minute timer. At the 17 minute mark I opened the oven and it dawned on my that I had no clue how to check whether the thing was done. I mean, it looked fine to me.

So I called my mom who said I should stick a toothpick or a knife in it. If it comes out clean, then it’s ready. I pressed the knife down and it looked and felt like I was poking pudding. OK. Definitely not done. Or anywhere near done.

Victory is Mine

Finally, about 30 minutes after the thing was supposed to be done, it passed the knife test. I pulled it out of the oven and put it on the range. I called my mom.

“What do I do now?” I asked her.

She laughed. “You cut it and you eat it,” she said.

Fair enough. I divided it into 8 equal pieces then calculated the nutritional information. Then I had a piece. It looked like banana bread and holy crap, it tasted like banana bread, too. 

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t break into a victory dance right there in my kitchen, fist pumping like Tiger on the 18^th green at Augusta.