06 August, 2011

Versitility...

When I began this venture, I had every intention of flogging some of my own creations from home and even some product taste tests in addition to what you have been reading, which up until now has only been reviews of the fruits of others labors at the many restaurants I have dined in.  To wit, I have been baking quite a bit again now that we are mostly unpacked in our new home.  I LOVE baking and cooking; it calms me down on the rough days...

I frequently find reason to search out new recipes for old favorites.  I have a BAJILLION banana bread recipes at my disposal, but something was telling me that in order to flog about it, I needed to be sure this was a sure winner or at the very least a awesome revamp of something that I used to think was just "okay".  Which brings us to the best Banana Bread recipe I've ever used.

I had some bananas lying on my counter waiting for some love that just wasn't coming...so they ended up in the freezer.  We tend to buy smaller bunches of bananas in this house, so banana bread hasn't happened in ages.  But the other day I spotted the sorry bunch of black fruit sitting in the freezer and figured I'd better deal with it.  By battering it to death....

Banana Bread 
5-6 frozen bananas, thawed
8 T. Earth's Balance vegan buttery spread
2 extra large eggs
3/4 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. baking soda
2 c. all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/2 c. walnuts, chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 F

Grease an 8 x 4 in. loaf pan, if you put this in a 9 in. pan it will reduce baking time.

 *Take your bananas out of the freezer the night before you make this bread.  When you open the rind, use kitchen shears to snip off the top of the banana and squeeze out the banana like you would squeeze a ketchup bottle.  Hold the end that it is being squeezed out of so when the juices follow the actual banana matter you can keep the extra juice from going into the bowl with the fruit.  This method concentrates the banana flavor SO much.  Make sure before you freeze the bananas they were half "dead"...meaning just under BLACK.  This makes for the HIGHEST banana flavor possible in your bread.

In a small bowl whisk flour, soda and sea salt together.  Beat bananas until no longer chunky in a separate bowl and set aside.  In a larger mixing bowl blend sugar with butter until creamy; add vanilla and eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.  Alternately add flour mixture and banana to the wet ingredients in your large mixing bowl.  If using, fold in nuts now.  Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.  Check bread with a toothpick after 1 hour and 15 minutes passes and again every 5 minutes until toothpick clean. (Every oven cooks differently....some faster, some slower and some have hot spots and cold spots but all usually take at least the 1 hour.)



I will warn you that this may not rise "pretty" for you.  You can mess around with adding more baking soda to accomplish the uniform rise, but I didn't bother.  The taste was spectacular!  In fact, this was the BEST banana bread I have EVER had.  The Sprout couldn't lay off of it and neither could I.  There are a number of ways you can eat this.  Perhaps ways you've not thought of...but, maybe you have.  I know I am not the only person with good ideas.  I'll share a few of the ideas in case you haven't discovered these particular ones...

1.  Toast it, spread peanut butter on top and eat.
2.  Cut it into 1/2 inch slices and use for french toast. 
3.  Toast it, spread Nutella on top and eat. 
4.  Eat room temperature OR refrigerated with butter on top.
5.  Eat room temperature with honey on top.  Oh so yummly!
6.  Toast it, spread on cream cheese!  So creamy...

Peanut Butter


French Toast

Wildflower Honey

 Please, please, PLEASE if you have anymore ideas post them here.  Honestly the toasted with peanut butter and room temperature with butter are my two faves.  I'd LOVE to hear what you do with your banana bread...besides just the part where you devour it.  I hope you love this bread and all the fun things you can do with it as much as my family and I do.  Enjoy!!

For Chocolate Banana Bread omit 1/2 c. of flour and add 1/2 c. high quality cocoa powder (like Callebaut or Droste).  SO yummy!

3 comments:

  1. Is it possible to make a chocolate banana bread? I can't stand bananas unless dipped in chocolate! Apparently, my taste buds sometimes resemble a balking 5 year old! I'm totally intrigued by the glueten, though - and it sounds awesome - but how could I dip that in chocolate?

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  2. Of COURSE you can add chocolate TO banana bread. All you need to do is leave out about a 1/4 cup of the flour and add a 1/2 cup of a high quality cocoa powder. The reason you add MORE cocoa than the amount of flour you take out is that the flour is MUCH more dense than the cocoa. So to make up for the missing 1/4 cup you'll need to add MORE cocoa than a 1/4 cup If you want to dip it in chocolate that is NO problem either. I didn't put this in the blog because I ran out of bread to do the 6 ideas that were already there...BUT...something I have done when I am in a certain mood (PMSing of course...) is chunk up the bread into nice size (about the size of dice...maybe bigger) cubes...toss them in the FREEZER for about 20 minutes with just a piece of saran wrap over them loosely. While they are doing their thing (getting hard and COLD) melt your FAVORITE chocolate either in a double boiler or the microwave. When it is smooth take the banana bread cubes out and set them one at a time in the bowl, cover the top with chocolate using a spoon...DO NOT ROLL the cubes...they'll most likely break up. Remove with a FORK and gently tap the fork on the edge of the bowl to remove the excess chocolate. Place them on wax paper to cool. This will take a bit even though they were kinda frozen to begin with. My freezer is very powerful. If yours isn't, you might want to let them sit longer than the 20 minutes...perhaps double that. But, once they are no longer shiny and don't take your fingerprint to the touch...they are ready to be poppable banana bread bites! SO yummy! =)

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  3. I tried your recipe, it was delicious! I even tried toasting it with peanut butter, never heard of doing that before. Thanks for sharing! :)

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