When Life is Bananas…

Bake banana bread. Like the alteration with that last sentence? I know I do.

A lot of my cooking endeavors start from a bulk purchasing mistake, and trying hard not to be wasteful (see garlic confit recipe). I love me some Costco, but when you’re not paying attention while ordering off of Google Shopping Express you can end up with 3lbs of bananas and there are only so many bananas that one can eat.

I did the banana debacle in 2014 around Christmas time, and decided the best thing to do? Binge listening to Serial and bake banana bread. This year I Serial is still airing, so I’m already caught up on, so now to bake banana bread with I am binge watching Jessica Jones on Netflix. Shameless plug for a new comic book show with my first name doppelgänger. It’s far better than Daredevil was, and when they do the cross over show… But baking banana bread is kind of fitting for this show, you’ll see why if you’ve watched it.

Ok I digress.

Here’s the recipe I always use, it’s from Real Simple magazine with one substitute, I swapped out the regular flour for wheat flour to be more health conscious. Oh and I used mini pans so that I could have individual servings.

Banana Bread – Ingredients

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus more for the pan
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 ripe bananas, mashed (about 1 1/4 cups)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup pecans, chopped

Instructions

• Heat oven to 350° F. Butter an 81/2-by-41/2-inch loaf pan. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.


Banana Bread – Whisk Dry Ingredients Together

• In a large bowl, mix together the butter, bananas, granulated and light brown sugars, eggs, and vanilla. Add the flour mixture and mix until just combined (do not overmix); fold in the pecans.

Banana Bread – Moist Ingredients

Banana Bread – Fold it together
• Spread the batter in the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 50 to 60 minutes (tent with foil if top browns too quickly). Cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Delicious, warm and moist banana bread. I love eating it hot out of the oven in the winter. I suspect I’ll be doing this next Christmas break too, but what media will I be consuming while making it remains to be seen.

Banana Bread – En fin