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.