Monday, June 12, 2006
Banana Bread Victory
While I am a pretty good cook ifIdosaysomyself, I have not had the best luck with baking. I've been trying to work on that, and my latest project has been banana bread. I've gone through a few recipes, morphed some, combined aspects of some, tweaked a bit, and am finally happy with the result.
Those that know me well know of my various food issues - most of which involve texture. For me the joy of banana bread is in the subtlety of banana flavor, and I struggled to find the fine line between not enough banana-ness and the too-much-banana-mushiness akin to pudding. (I loathe pudding. I don't even like to say the word. *shudder*)
So you may want to add a third banana to this recipe. And you may want to add nuts. I personally believe that nuts should not sully the beauty that is banana bread (or brownies, but that's a different post, I guess), but that is your option. For what it's worth, I'm also the Crazy that grew up in Hawaii but doesn't go nuts over pineapple and coconut, and I like my peanuts boiled not roasted, so you can take my advice with a grain of kosher salt.
Banana Bread
2/3 cup sugar
¼ c butter or margarine, softened
3 eggs
approximately 2 medium bananas
¼ cup water or milk
1 ½ c flour
1 tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. vanilla
Optional additions:
½ c chopped nuts
Procedure
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a loaf or muffin pans with vegetable oil cooking spray. Beat the sugar and butter or margarine in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, bananas, vanilla, and water or milk. Beat on low speed until well blended.
Mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Stir into the banana mixture until moistened. Pour and scrape into the loaf pan.
Bake the 8-inch loaf for 60 minutes, the 9-inch for 45-50 minutes, a small loaf pan(s) for 30-40 minutes, muffins for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool five minutes. Loosen sides of loaf from pan. Remove from pan and cool completely on a rack before slicing.
Those that know me well know of my various food issues - most of which involve texture. For me the joy of banana bread is in the subtlety of banana flavor, and I struggled to find the fine line between not enough banana-ness and the too-much-banana-mushiness akin to pudding. (I loathe pudding. I don't even like to say the word. *shudder*)
So you may want to add a third banana to this recipe. And you may want to add nuts. I personally believe that nuts should not sully the beauty that is banana bread (or brownies, but that's a different post, I guess), but that is your option. For what it's worth, I'm also the Crazy that grew up in Hawaii but doesn't go nuts over pineapple and coconut, and I like my peanuts boiled not roasted, so you can take my advice with a grain of kosher salt.
Banana Bread
2/3 cup sugar
¼ c butter or margarine, softened
3 eggs
approximately 2 medium bananas
¼ cup water or milk
1 ½ c flour
1 tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. vanilla
Optional additions:
½ c chopped nuts
Procedure
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a loaf or muffin pans with vegetable oil cooking spray. Beat the sugar and butter or margarine in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, bananas, vanilla, and water or milk. Beat on low speed until well blended.
Mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Stir into the banana mixture until moistened. Pour and scrape into the loaf pan.
Bake the 8-inch loaf for 60 minutes, the 9-inch for 45-50 minutes, a small loaf pan(s) for 30-40 minutes, muffins for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool five minutes. Loosen sides of loaf from pan. Remove from pan and cool completely on a rack before slicing.
// posted by Candace @ 11:40 AM 
