Banana Bread

There's really nothing quite like a good banana bread.

Our tourist guide to Maui had countless entries for roadside stands with different styles of banana bread -some flagged for "worth a journey" - and many of them were.

One of my favorite banana bread recipes comes from Mollie Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook.  The catch is that she changed it in the new edition. So for posterity's sake,  I'm capturing it here from our well thumbed and heavily used  original 1977 paperback edition.

You'll find it on pages 188 and 189 of the original edition.  Page 188 is the recipe for Carrot Cake, of which, on 189 is a derivative for making Banana Bread.

I've taken some liberties with how to do this based on my experience making the bread, and the fact that I'm using equipment rather than the time honored method of bowels and spoons.

First - Mollie's original recipe:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Ingredients

To make the liquid:

• One cup (two sticks) of room temperature butter
• 1 1/3 cups of brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp almond extract
• 1 tsp grated orange rind
• 2/3 cup black coffee
• 1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana

For the dry ingredients

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 cups white flour
• 1tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 TBS baking powder
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg

Optional

• 3/4 cups each currants or nuts

Procedure 

Mollie has you mix the liquid ingredients together in a bowl and separately mix the dry ingredients.  Then fold the ingredients in a third bowel together a third at a time beating gently with a , alternating dry-liquid- dry until it's all folded together.  The point is to not stir too much as it toughens and dries out the bread.

Once it's mixed together, prepare two small loaf pans (4" x 9" or so) by generously oiling, and coating the sides with sesame seed.  Split the batter between the two, and bake for 40-50 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center has no batter / liquid adhering to it when pulled out. 

My modifications

First - use a food processor for everything but the flour and nuts.  Take all the wet and dry ingredients together and blend them until smooth. 

Second - I just feed the bananas into the food processor while it's running - let it do the work. 

A note on bananas - try to find the little short bananas that we can get in Asian markets out here - they're far tastier than even over ripe regular bananas.  I don't really measure them anymore - I just drop about 8 or 9 of the little guys (3 large) into the food processor while it's going.  Oh, after peeled of course..  You can play with the total amount over successive batches to find out what works best for you.  

Third - We use pecans for nuts and skip the dried fruit.  When I was growing up some distant relative owned a pecan grove in Oklahoma and would send us crates and crates of pecans for Christmas - grew to appreciate the pecan above most other nuts.  But you could use walnuts if it rocks your boat.  Chop them up separately with a cleaver and mix in when ever.  I probably use a cup and a half (three handfuls) because I like a lot of nuts.  If you want,  put some sesame seeds in at this point.  Maybe 1/2 cup or so.

Fourth - in a large bowl mix the two flours together until well blended.  I use a rubber spatula to do this since that's what I'll stir in the liquid ingredients.

Fifth - I don't bother with the third/third/third fold in approach - make a pocket in the flour and pour the entire contents of the food processor into the pocket.  Using your rubber spatula, gently fold the flour into the liquid until you no longer see any flour - it should be a thick goo once you're done.  Be sure to scrape the sides as yo duo this to get any flour that's sticking there.

Sixth - while I do oil the pans, I don't use sesame seed to coat them - we've found that this just makes a huge mess when you cut the loaves to toast or serve them.  See point 3 above.

Seventh - I let the loaves cool on a cooling rack (OK, really a vegetable grill that if turned upside down thinks it's a cooling rack) and then wrap in tin foil once cooled.  Be careful if slicing before the the loaf cools - it can be a little crumbly.

Enjoy - and play around!

A note on ovens - I prefer old gas stoves - ours is a 1940s Wedgwood - it's been refurbished several times, the burners rebuilt and replaced and the stop re-chromed.  It's about the best stove  I've ever used, EXCEPT the temperature knob on the oven has very little to do with the actual temperature inside.  Get an oven thermometer to be sure you're cooking at the right temperature.

A note on the orange -  I use the whole rind of a medium orange - quite a bit more than Mollie's instructions, but I like the sharper taste of the orange in the banana bread.  

A note on the coffee - Over the years I've played around with this - drip, espresso, french press, caff, de-caff, dark roast, light roast.  I've settled in on a dark roast caff made in a french press because it doesn't convey the bitterness of a drip coffee, and to get 2/3 of a cup of espresso  makes it really really coffee-tasted.  

One thing is for sure - use a good roast.  I'll plug my neighborhood roaster (he's been in business for 40 years and is transitioning the business to his son - love the smell of roasting beans in the morning) and his Italian Roast for this - Henry's House of Coffee - he delivers and has a web order page here.  Order some today - you won't be disappointed.