Banana Bread

This bread is bananas: B-A-N-A-N-A-S! Banana bread is like the toast of the baking world – everyone should know how to make banana bread. It’s what you do with over ripe bananas. You can’t screw up banana bread. Actually you can, you can use under ripe bananas, or watery bananas, or you can over mix the batter, or use bandanas instead of bananas. But, I am here to prevent your banana bread blunders. I am the toothpaste to your cavity. I am the apple to your doctor. I am the condom to your —WHOA —I am not going there.

This Allrecipes.com banana bread recipe has been my go-to for awhile. The sour cream makes it super moist and I think the tang of it only enhances the banana flavor. Speaking of enhancing flavor,  to crank my banana bread to 11, I always roast two of the bananas to mix in with the batter and slice a third banana to add at the end. Ain’t nobody going to ask you what kind of bread they’re eating with all that flavor packed into each bite. But if they do, I suggest you invoke Gwen Stefani per above. This bread is bananas : B-A-N-A-N-A-S .

So how do you roast bananas? You set your oven to 350. You put your bananas on a baking sheet (still in the peel), but put down some aluminum foil on the sheet first to protect it. You put the bananas in the oven for 12 – 15 minutes until they are black with some juice oozing out the sides. If you want to go for extra credit —you little banana bread class pet you— then flip the bananas over with a thongs halfway through. Let the bananas cool to the touch, then open the peel and place the bananas (they will be very mushy) into a fine sieve. This will let the water drip off, because you don’t want to add too much extra moisture to your batter. You should be ready to work with your bananas after letting them sit in the sieve for 10 minutes.

Let’s say you freeze your bananas when they go brown (which is an excellent way to store them if you don’t want to make banana bread right away), then you cannot roast them. It involves lots of steaming and sizzling and sad puddles. Sad puddles would be a good name for a children’s Emo band, btw.

If you freeze your bananas, make sure to pull them out of the freezer and let them thaw, then pop open and squeeze into a fine mesh sieve to get rid of that extra water like we did with the roasted bananas.  What’s that? You forgot to take your bananas out of the freezer and you want to make banana bread RIGHT NOW?! Fine, put them in some warm water and they’ll thaw in a couple minutes.

This banana bread recipe is really great as is, so don’t feel pressured to do the roasting,  but also don’t feel pressured to stick to the two bananas the recipe calls for. I always use three regardless if I’m roasting or not.  The message is don’t feel pressured — let lady Chiquita speak to you and follow your taste buds.

This banana bread browns quickly, so I recommend you tent it with aluminum foil (fold piece of tin foil in half and place over the pan, pointy side up like a tent, so it is not touching the bread) until the last 10 minutes or so. Hopefully this will stop the top from getting too dark. Don’t freak out if it’s getting too dark, wait until it clears the toothpick test.

And remember what we said about the secret to good quick breads and muffins: don’t over mix the batter!  A couple of flour lumps, and in this case, a couple white swirls of sour cream is OK.

Banana Bread
From Allrecipes.com

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
2 medium bananas, sliced (I use three, two roasted)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan.

In a large bowl, stir together the melted butter and sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla, mix well. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl, stir into the butter mixture until just combined. Finally, fold in the sour cream, walnuts and bananas without over mixing. Spread evenly into the prepared pan.

Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool loaf in the pan for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Tags: banana, bread, roasted bananas