(un)burnt birthday banana bread bars

banananananananas!

We had a birthday in the office this past week and I took it as an opportunity to try a little stovetop experiment. 

After some time on google, mostly looking at blogs of the ovenless in Asia and Africa, I decided to try making some banana bread via steam. To avoid the whole burning fiasco that resulted from my last little experiment. 

I just used a regular banana bread recipe (one without milk or butter) for the oven and figured out a system with the multitude of pots we have in the office kitchen. Other ovenless folks tend to use dry heat, making use of dutch ovens or sand or rocks (in the pots) but a) we don't have a dutch oven, and I'm not even sure what one is b) there's not much sand around here c) all the rocks around here are covered in mud and d) I wasn't sure if I would scorch the the pot without anything in it SO I went with water/steam. 

Meet birthday boy Ambrose! He's one of the law students.

Shown: big pot with water, little pot to put the pan on, and a pan with the batter.

Afterwards this was covered with another pot.

In the above photo the batter absolutely does not look appetizing. BUT once it baked (steamed?) it was totally great. As an added bonus, there was no burning anywhere. 

Of course, this would have taken forever if it was a loaf ... not like we have a loaf pan ... the end product should more accurately be named banana bread bars.

BANANA BREAD BARS

YUM

Ambrose with a plate of banana bread bars. This was about a third of the total.

Ambrose serves Miriam, one of our lawyers.

With my girl Miriam!

All in all, a relative success! I like to be able to have something to do after work... there's only so much to do in Kianyaga, especially considering you have to be indoors after 6:30/7, when it gets dark.

I'm in Nairobi now, and will be embarking to Masai Mara for safari on Monday :)