Banana Bread

Yesterday, I made banana bread.  I had five rather brown bananas, so what else was I going to do?

Make Banana Bread and smother it in butter, is the correct answer.

I used the basic recipe from joyofbaking, but with a few changes. 

Half a cup of brown sugar for a half a cup of white sugar.

A half a teaspoon each of ground ginger and cinnamon.

And a half a cup of whole wheat flour for a half a cup of the all-purpose flour.  I enjoy the slight chewiness a partial substitution of whole wheat flour can bring to recipes, and I thought it might help soak up the extra moisture from using five bananas instead of three. 

I also browned my butter, because I got carried away melting it on the stove. It's been a while since I baked anything, and I was having fun. And maybe also drawing out the process a little. 

Since I'm in Germany now and didn't think to bring vanilla extract (I did think of it. But my bags were full enough already. One actually broke trying to zip it. Made for a fun last minute scramble, but we got it worked out. I needed my clothes more than I needed vanilla extract, which I realize is preposterous and my priorities are clearly out of order. But also, vanilla sugar. It's pretty good. I wasn't heading into an entirely vanilla-free wasteland.), I dumped in a whole packet of vanilla sugar. Because I could. It smelled delightful, so I can't say I was worried. Plus, in banana bread, with all the other spices - you probably don't really need vanilla that much. I was just having fun. Very good-smelling fun. 

All the fun.

I do like the results. I'd make this again. If I can't think of other strange ways to play with the next batch. I have some unopened coconut flour just waiting for an excuse.

Banana Bread:

Toast in the oven (350F, 180°C, for about 5-8 minutes, til fragrant and brown), then remove, let cool, and chop lightly:

1 cup walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350F/180°C.

Grease and flour, or line with parchment paper, a loaf pan, or muffin tins, or your favourite baking pan. I used my 9x13 casserole pan, and lined it with parchment.

In a large bowl, mix together:

1 1/4 cup All-Purpose Flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup brown sugar (German brown sugar is closer to raw cane sugar than regular american brown sugar, so keep that in mind)

1/4 cup granulated white sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda (or Natron, if you're looking for it in Germany)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 packet of vanilla sugar (1-2 teaspoons?)

1 cup toasted walnuts

In a separate bowl, mix together:

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 cup browned butter, melted and cooled

4-5 ripe bananas, mashed or blended (about 1 1/2-2 cups mashed)

(If you don't have vanilla sugar, add a teaspoon or two of vanilla extract here, if you'd like)

Pour your wet banana mixture into the dry mixture, and stir to combine. And then stop stirring. A few lumps are fine. They will disappear. Pour the batter into your prepared baking pan, and bake. About 50-60 minutes or til a tester (or sharp knife) comes out clean for a loaf pan - for my 9x13 baking pan it only took 25 minutes, so check after 20 minutes for those. I would guess you should start checking muffins at 10-15 minutes.

Notes:

German brown sugar is closer to raw cane sugar than regular american brown sugar, so it didn't change the moisture content as much. Feel free to try it out though, it'll probably still be fine in this case? 

I left the recipe saying use 2 large eggs because at 2 eggs it's still pretty close, but I actually only had medium eggs. I thought about using three, then decided against it given the extra half-cup of banana puree already going in. I know it could change the structure a little, but I was willing to take that risk. I wasn't expecting anything too fluffy anyway, quick breads generally aren't, and adding whole wheat flour doesn't lend itself to fluffy structures anyway.

Browning butter: Put your 1/2 cup butter in a pot on the stove, and melt at low heat. At some point it will start to sizzle and pop, don't let it burn, you can stir it a bit or swish it around in the pot a little, but let it sizzle away until it starts changing colour to a light maple syrup - it should also smell pretty nutty and caramelised and delicious. Let it cool a little, you might have to pour it into a separate bowl so it doesn't burn in the pot.  (Or if you like, pour it straight into the wet mixture like a silly person. Which is what I did. Luckily the mixing bowl was big enough to handle the foaming up of the hot butter being poured onto cold eggs and room temperature banana puree.) Pour that into your wet mixture.

If you use 1/2 cup butter, you'll end up with a little less than 1/2 cup browned butter - butter is about 80% fat, but there is some water in there, and some of that evaporates. So if you really want 1/2 cup, you can either add in a tablespoon or two of water at the end (to the banana mix! Not into the hot butter!), or if the idea of a few extra tablespoons of fat don't scare you, put 2/3 cup butter in your pot to start. Worst case, you have a little browned butter left over. I know it will be difficult, but I'm sure you can find a use for it.

Or, if like me, you have a few too many bananas already, you can choose to not worry about it. It should be fine anyway.

I spent a few days in a state of glee once I understood why you shouldn't overmix muffins: It's all about gluten development! We don't want too much of it in muffins or quick breads, because if you overmix, the gluten takes up the moisture and forms strands, leaving the quick bread dry (because the gluten took the moisture) and bready (because strands). Of course, if we're making a yeast bread, this is exactly what we want! So we knead (or don't knead and instead let it sit for 18 hours, which has a similar effect), and then we get a flexible dough, and a chewy end result

My casserole pan, now holding my dinner from that day.