For the next year I am doing a project - a different cake each week for an entire year - following the book All Cakes Considered: A Year's Worth of Weekly Recipes Tested, Tasted and Approved by the Staff of NPR's All Things Considered. You can read about the start of my project here and look at each week to date here.

The recipe: Procrastinatin' Drunken Monkey Banana Bread

The good news is it was cooked (although I had to cook it for 95 minutes instead of the suggested 60 minutes). The bad news is it wasn't anything special.

The big excitement this week was to flambee cherries - specifically dried cherries plumped in rum and set on fire. I'd never done it before and that part was fun but the cherries on top ended up burnt and I had to pick them out. Anyone who has flambeed cherries (or anything for that matter) before and wants to let me know how to flambee without charring the top layer, I'm all ears.



Recipients: Some cousins who came over for a visit.

Verdict: Meh. Not making it again.

Up next: The Barefoot Contessa's Sour Cream Coffee Cake.