This banana bread was good. It is good! Great even. On par with my normal banana bread which you can find here. I might like this a bit more because it is a bit less sweet and I do love the addition of white whole wheat flour. It gives the bread a heartier taste and I like the darker color which is irrelevant I know.
I found this in my new King Arthur Baking Company’s All-purpose Baker’s Companion book (that is a mouthful). The book was updated in March of this year and I’m excited to try out a lot of recipes. This was my first as I had extra bananas and felt like a change.
As mentioned the recipe includes white whole wheat flour and also a little cinnamon sugar coating on top which is particularly yummy. I added chocolate chips to some of my loaves (I doubled the recipe) and that was obviously very good (if you like chocolate).
Not much more to say – well, the recipe calls for a 9×5 loaf pan and I always find that my loaf cakes come out better if I don’t fill the entire pan with batter. I might use a bunch of small loaf pans or a large and small – but basically I find my cake cooks more evenly when not stuffed into the pan. Then I don’t have to overbake the cake in order to make the middle less raw. You can also use a muffin tin and make a muffin or two with the extra batter. Or just bake as the recipe is stated and I’m sure it will be fine.
Enjoy –
Ingredients
- 2 cups (454 g) mashed banana (about 4-5 medium bananas). Weigh everything if you have a kitchen scale. And if you don’t – buy one!
- 1/2 cup veggie oil (99 g)
- 1 cup (213 g) brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup (120g) all purpose flour
- 1 cup (113 g) white whole wheat flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt (diamond crystal is best in my opinion)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 c (57g) chopped walnuts, toasted if desired (optional)
- choc chips if desired
- 1 tablespoon (13g) sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. If using glass or stoneware, reduce the oven temp to 325. Lightly grease the loaf pan and line the bottom with parchment.
In a large bowl, stir together the mashed banana, oil, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla
Mix together the flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and chopped walnuts and chocolate chips (if using)
Combine the two and gently mix and fold until it is smooth.
Pour into prepared pan(s).
Combine the cinnamon and sugar for the topping and sprinkle all over the batter.
Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out just clean – with a few moist crumbs but no wet batter.
If the bread appears to be browning too quickly, tent the cake with aluminum foil.
Also, if using stoneware or glass pan, increase the baking time 15 m or so.
As you know – I don’t really believe in baking times. The recipe in the book calls for 60 to 75 minutes. As mentioned in the intro – I don’t like to stuff my loaf pans and bake for this long. I find it better to put a little less batter into the loaf pan – and then bake the rest in a mini loaf pan or a muffin or two.
In that case I would check the bread after 30 minutes and just see what’s going on. If it all is jiggly and wet – you know you have at least 10 m and likely more. Keep resetting the timer until it is done.
Let cool for 15 m and then run a knife around the edges, and turn it out of the pan onto a rack to cool completely.
Enjoy –
