I baked peanut butter cookies & banana bread (ft. Excessively Possible Recipes)

If I had three wishes, I would use them to make myself 1) a tea-drinker 2) a really good crossword puzzler and 3) someone who is able to confidently walk into the kitchen and bake a signature snack from memory without it taking hours. But seeing that nobody has offered me even one wish yet, I took matters into my own hands (which always ends great) and two or three years ago, I tried to make the third wish come true.

For a few months, I made slews of cookies and brownies. Some turned out absolutely fabulous and some turned out so salty that they were not edible. For one batch, I assumed this container with a Chinese label had sugar, but it was actually salt. We tried putting them outside so squirrels or birds would help us eat them, but the next day, the cookies were perfectly intact.

Sadly, I didn’t end up memorizing the recipes or learning to execute them in a timely manner. If someone was to write up a scientific report on why this experiment failed, their conclusion would probably include that I should’ve found simpler recipes.

So this month, when I felt an urge to spend more time in the kitchen, my priority was to find recipes that were certified Excessively Possible Recipes. To be an EPR, a recipe has to pass two tests: the Ingredients Test and the Instructions Test.

The Ingredients Test stipulates that I have to have most if not all the ingredients at home already. Oh, and they have to be simple. I would prefer not to go buy some special cream that I won’t know what to do with afterwards.

Usually, the only things I would have to go buy for these two recipes would probably be vanilla extract and margarine, but my brother-in-law had bought both of them, so I was able to bake with zero(!) grocery shopping.

The Instructions Test requires for the intructions to be supremely easy to follow. The two recipes below pass this one with flying colors. For both of them, you just add the ingredients into one bowl and then bake it in the oven.

Okay, I think I’ve established enough credibility for these recipes already. Let’s go.

Peanut Butter Cookies

It’s actually supposed to be Salted Peanut Butter Cookies, but I forgot to sprinkle “coarse-grained sea salt” on top at the end. And I’m sorry if you’re allergic to peanuts.

Original recipe from Ovenly

Ingredients:
– 1 3/4 cups brown sugar
– 2 large eggs
– 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
– 1 3/4 cups smooth peanut butter

Instructions:
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2) Mix sugar and eggs
3) Add vanilla extract
4) Add peanut butter & mix
5) Bake for 16-20 minutes

Notes:
The only thing I would’ve done differently is not put the cookies in the fridge because I think that is possibly the reason they became too chewy. Also, I usually never trust recipes that tell me to preheat the oven as the first step (it always takes me way longer to prep than the estimated time), but it actually worked for me on this one.

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Banana Bread

It smelled so good when it came out of the oven.

Ingredients:
– 1 stick margarine
– 1 cup sugar
– 1 egg
– 1/8 tsp salt
– 1 tsp baking soda (dissolved in water)
– 3 mashed ripe bananas
– 1 1/2 cups flour
– 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
– 1/2 cup chopped nuts
– I also added chocoalte chips which was a great decision

Instructions:
1) Mix margarine, sugar, and egg
2) Add baking soda and salt
3) Add bananas & mix
4) Add flour, vanilla, and nuts
5) Put into greased and floured loaf pan
6) Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hr 15 minutes

Notes:
I think this recipe is pretty flexible with adjustments. I didn’t use a full stick of margarine, I’m pretty sure I forgot to dissolve the baking soda in water, I forgot to mash the bananas beforehand so I just mashed them in the bowl, I used 5 or 6 bananas instead of 3 because mine were small, and I forgot to grease and flour the pan, but it still turned out very well.

So if you need to use butter instead of margarine, or exclude nuts because you’re allergic, or use a glass container or a muffin tin instead of a loaf pan (surprisingly we actually had a loaf pan), my expert opinion is that it would still taste good.

When I make this recipe again, there are two things I will do differently. The first thing is that I’m going to find a way to mix it electronically instead of by-hand because whisking bananas and flours and stuff was the only tough part of this. The second is that I’m going to wait until the bread cools before taking it out of the pan because I was way too impatient and it just crumbled.

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Oh wait, I just realized that I haven’t said anything about how these recipes actually taste. Both of them tasted very good, especially the banana bread one. I will definitely be making it again. So yes, these ERPs pass the taste test as well.

Have you baked anything recently?
What would you use your three wishes on?
Do you know of any EPRs?