Banana Bread

This makes enough batter for one 9x5 inch "loaf." Here's everything you'll need to get started!

3 to 4 over-ripe bananas These should be brown to the point of almost being gross. At this point in the ripening process, the banana's complex starches have largely broken down into simple sugars, making them WAY sweeter. The exact number you use isn't as important as you might think, just balance out the other liquids to compensate (I would stick to 3 to 4 though, based on a lot of attempts with more or less). If you don't have enough brown bananas now but still don't want them to go to waste, try freezing them to use later!

0.5 cups canola oil Or any other neutral-taste oil. Peaunut oil would probably be yummy too but I've never tried it.

0.25 cup unsweetened non-dairy milk I usually use almond milk but we really just need a liquid here! Just make sure it's unsweetened, since we want to control the sweetness of the cake with granulated sugar. If you absolutely must use sweetened milk, make sure to scale down the sugar to compensate. Trust me when I say it's sweet enough already!

1 tablespoon vanilla extract This is a good base line, but I pretty much always add more. That said, I'm a vanilla fiend so results may very. Feel free to scale this up or down to taste.

1 teaspoon vinegar This may sound a bit weird but I promise it's critically important for two reasons. The first is flavor. For some reason it just tastes better. No idea lol. The other perhaps more interesting reason is that it adds levity to the cake by reacting with the baking soda to form carbon dioxide bubbles. Leave this out and the bread will be dense and gross. Any vinegar works, but in my opinion apple cidar and red wine taste the best. Alternatively, you could leave this out and use baking power (which is a mixture of baking soda and acid), but I make no guarantees it'll be as good!

2 cups all-purpose flour Cake flour might also work but I've never tried it. I'd recommend sticking with this though, since it's the most common type anyway.

An amount of nutmeg I'll be honest, I always eyeball this. Similar to vanilla, I flipping love nutmeg, so you'll probably want to use less anyways. Rule of thumb: mix small amounts into the batter until you just barely smell its aroma when you place your nose close to the bowl. Or if you don't feel like it, just throw some in. As long as it's not too much it'll be good.

Peel the bananas and place them into a mixing bowl. Using a mashing device (e.g. a fork, a potato masher, etc), mash the bananas into a smooth mixture.
Add the oil, non-dairy milk, vanilla extract, and vinegar to the mashed bananas. Mix thoroughly.
Add the sugar to the wet ingredients and mix.
Add the flour and salt. Mix everything together. Then, mix in nutmeg to taste (please see above).
Grease a 9 x 5 inch baking pan with your oil of choice (pro tip: you really only need to do the bottom of the pan, doing the sides too works if you need to but can cause burning from my experience).
Mix in the baking soda and make sure the batter is homogeneous. Pour the contents into your freshly greased baking pan and allow it to sit undisturbed for 10-15 minutes. This gives the baking soda and vinegar time to react and form CO2 bubbles. While you wait go ahead and preheat the oven to around 350F (176C).
After the oven has reached terminal temperature and the batter has sit for at least 10-15 minutes, go ahead and place the batter-filled pan inside. After around 55 minutes have passed, insert a toothpick (or an equivalent stick-like device) and pull it back out. If it comes back clean, you're all done! If it doesn't, bake for another 5 minutes and try again, then repeat as necessary. After you remove the cake from the oven, let it sit for around 10 to 15 minutes, then slice and serve!