Actual Banana Bread

  

Now with picture! Looks like any other bread...

  
Unlike what is usually meant by the term banana bread, which is in fact a sort of very moist cake, this is a formula for yeast risen bread, using bananas.

460 grams over ripe bananas. This was 4 medium sized ones for me.
525 grams bread flour
30 grams butter
7 grams salt
7 grams yeast

Peel and smash the bananas and then put everything in a bread machine to knead for 2o minutes. Proof the dough for about 2 hours. Deflate the dough and gently shape it into a loaf. Put it in a loaf pan and let it rise until doubled, then bake at 375 for an hour.

Notes:

1. The variable nature of bananas as a unit of measure is somewhat irritating to me.
2. It means that either you will have to do some algebra to figure out how much flour to add, or just kinda eyeball it. I would hate to recommend using algebra. My 8th grade algebra teacher would probably laugh her ass off at me, sitting here trying to remember how to calculate ratios. Shut up, Anne Thomas!
3. Just eyeball it. Keep in mind that this dough should be quite sticky.
4. Because it is so sticky, you will need to flour your hands and work surface quite a bit in order to shape it into a nice loaf.
5. This dough rises quite slowly, but will poof dramatically in the oven. I think it's because there is so much sugar from the bananas.
6. Over ripe bananas means just that. Mine were almost totally black and I had started to worry about fruit flies and fermentation before I stuck them in the fridge to stabilize them until I could put them in the bread.

Dad used to make this bread regularly, there was also a version of it with raisins in it that I was very partial to. I didn't have enough raisins today, but maybe next time. I think this is the first time I've tried to make it and I'm really happy with how it came out. Mine is fluffier and chewier than Dad's banana bread, because he never used bread flour, only all purpose. It still smells the same though- kinda carameley and tropical. It smells like wellbeing to me.

Oh Banana Bread!

  

  
Why are you so delicious? Why is it so hard not to eat you with a spoon right out of the oven?

Why banana 'bread'? It isn't even legitimately bread, it's CAKE, damnit. And why is it so hard to get a loaf of banana bread out of a non-stick pan? I am champing with impatience to eat this thing right now, and it's too hot, and it won't come unstuck, and all I can do is put a picture on the internet so that at least everyone else can share my suffering.

3/4 c sugar
5 T softened butter
2 eggs
1 1/2 c very ripe bananas (that was 3 medium sized ones for me)
1/2 c greek yogurt
1tsp vanilla
2 1/2 c flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 c chopped toasted walnuts

 Pre-heat the oven to 350.

Put all the moist ingredients in a large mixing bowl and whip the bajeebus out of them. Add the sugar and salt, whip again. Sift in the flour and soda, mix until smooth, mix in the nuts, then pour into a loaf pan. Bake for 1 hr 20 min. Seriously, it's that easy.

But there are some things that are useful to know:

1. Start with the eggs and bananas at room temperature. Makes the bread poofier. If your eggs and or bananas are cold, stick them in a bowl of hot tap water for about 10 minutes.

2. No, you don't have to put in the nuts. But if you do, it is important to toast them first, they have much more flavor that way,.

3. Learn from my mistake and line the pan with waxed paper. Oil the pan, put in the paper, oil and flour the paper, then pour in the batter.The paper keeps the bread from touching the pan. No touching = no sticking.  Oiling the pan keeps the paper from scooting around. Oiling & flouring the paper makes it possible to get the paper off the bread when you want to eat it.

4. There is a handful of crumb topping on it. Take roughly equal parts of flour, sugar(either brown or white), oatmeal and butter. Ok, be a little generous with the butter. Add a teaspoon of baking powder for every 3 cups of crisp. Smash everything into pea-sized morsels, then freeze it until you want to use it.

The original recipe I found on the Betty Crocker website called for nearly twice as much butter and sugar, and uses buttermilk instead of yogurt. I never have buttermilk, but yogurt is pretty much the same. As I've written it above, this bread is not as heavy and gummy as many recipes I've tried, and the banana favor isn't overwhelmed by sugar. Yes, I gave up waiting for the thing to come un-glued from its pan. At least I used a knife to cut out a piece, not a spoon.Well, two pieces. For now.

I am 37

  

  
I celebrated by doing nerdly innocuous things all day. Like go to the Portland Nursery to buy apples, and ride my dreadful bike. I went over to my brother's house, which had no electricity, and had family dinner, and we were all glad that a) the self-destruction of his electric meter did not result in anything worse, that b) my brother in law had cooked the turkey at his house, c) that a gas grill makes really good roasted cauliflower and d) cake.

The cake is an improved version of the banana cake I made before.

Banana cake 2

1 package TJ's freeze-dried bananas
1 cup butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
4 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk

Pre-heat the oven to 350.
Butter & flour a 9 x 12" pan

Pulverize the bananas in a food processor until they are a very fine powder. Cream the butter, sugar, and banana powder together until the mixture is very smooth and light. Add the eggs and vanilla, and continue to beat until the batter has an even fluffy texture. Sift in the dry ingredients alternating with the milk, mixing gently but thoroughly between each addition. Spread the batter in the pan and tap it gently on the counter so that any big air bubbles pop out. Bake for about 25 min, then allow it to cool before removing from the pan.

The previous post on this subject covered most of the important points, but there are a few things I should point out:

I used the same cream cheese frosting as I did the last time I made cake, although I forgot to mention at the time that the strawberry portion needs an additional 2 or 3 tablespoons of water. The strawberries reconstitute very rapidly, and will make the frosting too thick and sticky to spread without a little more liquid.

This cake did not rise as much as the other one. I think my oven is getting worse. I made this, and the top of the batter did not cook at all well. It still tastes good, but the upper stratum of each cake layer is a smidge under-done. Regardless, I think that the formula I used this time is an improvement over the last one.

I have slightly mixed feelings about this cake. On the plus side, the insides of this version are much more visually appealing, I think. The freeze-dried bananas don't brown the batter the way fresh ones do, and the contrast with the pink icing is better. On the minus side, this still needs either an electric mixer to get more air in the batter, or more leavening. The cake is quite dense, rather than fluffy, but I'm not going to be too picky.  More importantly, it has a subtle but rich banana flavor which is enhanced by the frosting.