Banana nut bread

     Don't you love it when you get inspiration from the ingredients you have laying around the house?  Case in point: Two very brown (almost black) bananas that we had lying in our fruit bowl.  Old bananas instantly make me think of banana nut bread, as the very best banana bread is made from very ripe bananas.  As it turns out, the recipe needed three bananas, so I ended up using two very ripe bananas and one regular ripe one, but it all came out wonderfully!

Banana Bread
By Mark Bittman
From the How to Cook Everything^® app

Introduction:

The best banana bread is a balancing act: It requires a fair amount of fat to keep it moist and lighten the crumb; a little whole wheat flour gives it some substance. And in my opinion the result should be sweet, but not overly so. Though coconut is my favorite secret ingredient, feel free to omit it or add more nuts, raisins, or other dried fruit instead if you like. This bread keeps better than most quick breads, though it probably won't be around too long.

Ingredients:

• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, softened, plus butter for the pan
• 1½ cups all‐purpose flour
• ½ cup whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1½ teaspoons baking powder
• ¾ cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 very ripe bananas, mashed with a fork until smooth
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans
• ½ cup shredded coconut

Procedure:

1. Heat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9- x 5‐inch loaf pan with butter.
2. Mix together the dry ingredients. With a hand mixer, a whisk, or in the food processor, cream the butter and beat in the eggs and bananas. Stir this mixture into the dry ingredients, just enough to combine (it's okay if there are lumps). Gently stir in the vanilla, nuts, and coconut.
3. Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake for 45 to 60 minutes, until nicely browned. A toothpick inserted in the center of the bread will come out fairly clean when done, but because of the bananas this bread will remain moister than most. Do not overcook. Cool on a rack for 15 minutes before removing from the pan.

Courtesy of John Wiley & Sons. Copyright © Double B Publishing Inc. All rights reserved.

Banana nut bread, slightly under-baked

     Notes on this version of the recipe:  The recipe you see above is from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything app for the iPod.  I actually made this recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything book.  My version of the book has a yellow cover and was published in 1998.  His newest version has a red cover and was published ten years later.  Now, I had been quite curious about this version, but didn't want to shell out the money to buy the newest version of a book I already had.  Fortunately, when I bought my iPod, I found there was an app for "How to cook everything."  Curious, I bought it and loved it!  I get to have my go-to cookbook at my fingertips when I travel without having to lug the whole darn thing around with me (the book is quite hefty!).  Plus, I get access to all of the new recipes.  Best of all, it only cost like $10 and you can e-mail the recipes to someone.  This is so much easier than copying the recipe by hand for my blog.

     In the original version of this recipe, his introduction is as follows: "I love banana bread (especially toasted, the next day, with peanut butter), but I have been making them for thirty years and I do think this one is the ultimate- the coconut is what does it, although the butter helps too."  It also specifies to use grated dried unsweetened coconut, which I think is an important specification as I don't think the recipe would quite be as good with the ultra sugary shredded coconut you get in the baking section of grocery stores.  By the way, it really is delicious toasted the next day with peanut butter.  

     

     Notes on an ingredients substitution:  I am trying to go dairy-free for a month to see if dairy affects me adversely at all.  I started on February 7th (and cheated around Valentine's day) and will end on my husband's birthday, March 7th.  So, instead of butter, I used Earth Balance's organic coconut spread.  You could not taste any difference in the final product, but it was definitely a lot more difficult to mix in the batter than butter would have been.

     Notes on how the recipe came out:  Delicious!  Alas, even though I tried the toothpick test (and it came out clean), I under-baked it and so the center top part was more dough than bread.  Too lazy to re-bake it, I just ate it dough and all.  I'd recommend baking it.  Not as delicious to eat banana nut bread dough!  And, to confound the problem, the bottom started burning.  Gotta love ovens...

     I've made this recipe once before and I remember Scott just thinking it was "okay."  He didn't really think the coconut added all that much to the recipe.  However, this time around, he absolutely loved it coconut and all.  I personally think the coconut really does add to the recipe.  I could not stop eating it and neither could Scott.  How quickly it was eaten in our house.  And now I have three bananas in my fruit basket that are turning a lovely shade of brown.  Perhaps some banana nut bread is in my immediate future...