A year ago, I had decided to advise a student organization. Close Up Organization's mission is to give students and teachers a closer look into the US Federal Government. Students and teachers travel from their respective US states and territories to Washington DC and experience a program like no other. Despite my enthusiasm and excitement at the thought of traveling to Washington DC from Guam, where and how am I going to come up with $4,500 to pay for this endeavor? By baking bread. With my money maker, I had made Banana Bread, Red Velvet Cake, Carrot Cake, even Cinnamon Rolls. At first, I only thought of making Banana Bread. But as the days went by it became monotonous. It was then that I decided to throw in other flavors. By January, each flavor became the flavor of the month.
Banana Bread
3/4 cup butter
3 cups granulated sugar
3 eggs
6 mashed up bananas
2 cups sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
1 cup of chopped walnuts
Preheat at 300 degrees F (150 degrees C)
Cream the butter, add the sugar and beat the eggs with and into the mixer. In a separate bowl mash the bananas, and throw in the sour cream, vanilla extract, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. After thoroughly mixing what was in the separate bowl, add this mixture to what has already been mixed in the mixer. While mixing on low, gradually put in the flour and walnuts.
As these mix on low, prepare two 8 1/2 X 4 1/2 loaf pans. I coated these pans twice, one with cooking spray and a cinnamon-sugar coat. After this, pour in the mixture and bake these babies for two hours. Use the toothpick method to see if the loaves were baked well. When baking is done, we actually have to rest these loaves out of the oven for another 30 minutes before removing them from the pan. Sometimes, I let them rest for an hour. You'll know you rested them adequately because you can shake the loaves off the pan without breakage. Oh! the times I did not let them rest...so wasteful.
The loaves made sixteen 2 centimeter slices. Each slice was sold at $2.00. Although I was happy that my baking enterprise assisted me and my students head to Washington DC, I thought about the time it takes to prepare and bake this stuff. It took me on average 6 hours. That's almost full time employment. As I thought of that, I also realized that I took on this effort not really considering how many materials, aside from the baking materials it takes to be successful. (i.e. the plastic wrap and the time it took to wrap each slice. The change fund...) Add that to my day job as a teacher, I was completely exhausted. This effort in itself, plus teacher duties was stressful. More stress was added when the students approached me and my club partner about their congenial concerns and the way earned money was spent, not to mention my personal bills. I was left with the question, who has the energy to do this every year? In the end, I took away a lifetime experience with tons of lessons learned. Oddly, I look forward to the insanity once again, when I have been well rested and maybe a little more wiser.
