Breadify This!

I know banana bread is having a bit of a moment as people want something comforting and relatively easy to make that will use up the bananas before they get thrown out, so I dove into Mary Margaret McBride's Encyclopedia of Cooking Deluxe Illustrated Edition (1959) to see how fifties families used up whatever they had around the house by throwing it in quick breads.

While I of course knew about the popularity of adding cereal to muffins for bran muffins, I saw that adding cereal to quick breads was way more popular than I realized. Sick of the farina? Well, turn it into muffins!

Tired of the same old bread sticks?

Roll them in crushed rice cereal mixed with salt and caraway or poppy seeds! (I really hope the rice cereal ended up crunchy rather than gummy with moisture from the bread...)

And can you guess the layer of topping on this dough that's about to be rolled and cut cinnamon-roll style?

No, it's not bugs and sawdust.

It's cornflakes, honey, and raisins! There is nothing redundant about filling a bread with a cereal swirl. And you'll end up with 10 to 12 rolls that hope you will pay attention to the flowers and the pitcher of milk so you won't notice how much they look like shapeless blobs rather than dessert-y rolls.

Not all the recipes call for cereal, though. There's always at least one recipe for people who stocked up on too much canned soup. Why not turn it into doughnuts?

I'm not sure why these tomato-soup-based confections are called Pied Piper Doughnuts. I thought the Pied Piper was supposed to lure the kids away, not actively drive them away. (Trying to feed the kids tomato soup doughnuts might be a good way to get the afternoon to oneself, though!)

And finally, if you really want something to do with the bananas, the book offers a couple of new options. I'll be nice and post a couple recipes that are probably at least okay, and perhaps an interesting change once the banana bread seems passé.  If you're a fan of cinnamon rolls, here is a banana equivalent.

And if you need to redeem yourself after the tomato soup doughnut incident, these might do the trick.

If you're stuck inside, you might as well enjoy a carb overload!