Robin's Eccentricities

Mom makes the best banana bread in the world. It is juicy. Yes, juicy. I tried for many years just following the recipe she used and it never turned out like hers. She would tell me that she substitutes some of the liquid with banana juice from the frozen bananas and she used extra bananas. The original recipe called for 1 1/2 cups. That was where I always made my mistake! I finally asked her, "How much extra banana?" This recipe includes her modifications. Try it, you won't regret it! My favorite way to eat this bread is cold with margarine. (Believe it or not with all my talk about only using real butter when cooking I honestly cannot stand the taste of it used as a spread!) Others prefer it warm with butter melting off from it. You decide for yourself. I should also add that the pictures are a triple batch of this recipe. The bread freezes wonderfully and is just as moist thawed as it is fresh.  Ingredients: 3/4 cup butter, softened 1 1/2 cups sugar 2 1/4 c

Chocolate syrup for ice cream, mochas, brownies, milk, hot chocolate, straight or however else you like it. This is another one of those recipes that probably isn't as economical as buying the store bought version but you get to say that you made it from scratch. This recipe is also for canning but if you don't want to go that far and don't have an immediate use for 4 cups of chocolate syrup, just cut the batch down. (The big 24 ounce bottle of chocolate syrup is 3 cups.) This recipe also calls for dutch process cocoa. This type of cocoa has been treated with an alkali to neutralize its natural acidity. It is darker and more mellow than regular cocoa and dissolves easily in liquids. There are several brands of dutch process but the only one I could find near me was Hershey's Special Dark. (That is also the cocoa I use when making dark chocolate buttercream frosting.) Chocolate Syrup 1 1/2 cups dutch process cocoa 1 1/2 cups water 3 cups sugar 2 Tablesp