Adventures In BBB
BBB. Basic Banana Bread, of course. What did you think I meant?
I know that it’s not high level pastry chef fare, but I do love banana bread. And banana cake. And no one can deny that it’s a proper way to use up old bananas. In fact, for this recipe, I used bananas that were so soft and ripe that I had a little trouble getting them out of their skins. My recipe is adapted from somewhere on the internet, but it’s been so long that I can’t remember where I found the original recipe.
It’s so easy…melt some butter in the microwave. Cut the butter up into pieces and melt in short bursts on low power; otherwise, you will be cleaning butter out of your microwave for years to come…a butter explosion makes quite a mess. While the butter is melting, mash up some bananas in a large bowl. Add in your melted butter and whisk it together.
Whisk in your brown sugar, egg, vanilla, bourbon, and all the dry ingredients except for the flour. And finally, whisk in your flour. If you want to do things the “proper” way, you could of course sift together all the dry ingredients before you add them to the liquid mixture. But I don’t find that’s necessary.
Grease up a loaf pan, turn your batter into that, and bake it until it’s done, usually about an hour. I generally try to take a “glamor shot” sort of picture of the finished dish, but there’s just nothing glamorous about banana bread. It’s a dark, lumpy loaf that look completely unremarkable, especially given my limited photography capabilities. Having said that…it’s delicious. Store it in an airtight container for up to a week.
A couple notes: yes, the bourbon is optional. But I find it adds a somewhat undefinable extra dimension of flavor to the finished product, so I always add it. Also, if you wanted to make this slightly healthier, you could substitute 1/2 cup of the flour for whole wheat pastry flour.
Enjoy!
Basic Banana Bread
Click here for printable PDF of recipe
INGREDIENTS
3 large, ripe bananas, smashed
6 Tbsp melted unsalted butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 Tbsp vanilla
1 Tbsp bourbon or whiskey (not rye whiskey!)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 1/2 cups flour
DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 350°. With a whisk, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, vanilla and bourbon. Sift the dry ingredients over the top and whisk to combine. Pour batter into a buttered 4×8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. Cool on a rack 5 minutes, then remove from pan to finish cooling. Will keep for up to a week if stored in airtight container at room temperature.
NOTES
If you don’t have pumpkin pie spice on hand, you can substitute:
1 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
A pinch of clove
If you wish to make this bread slightly more nutritious, you can substitute 1/2 cup of the regular flour for whole wheat pastry flour.
