Best Banana Bread

Best Banana Bread

Adapted from Maida Heatter by Blue Heron Kitchen

This recipe, the best banana bread I’ve ever made or tasted is adapted from the great Maida Heatter. 

Let's go bananas!

I’m publishing this recipe by weight measurement. If you require volume measurements, send me an email at blueheronkitchen@gmail.com.

But...

If you haven’t bought a kitchen scale, here’s a link to an inexpensive one in the U.S. It’s about $23. American, and worth the investment. An electronic kitchen scale is invaluable essential to becoming a rock star baker. You'll achieve excellent and consistent results. (Check out Wirecutter (thewirecutter.com) for "the best" products. It's a great resource.)

Weighing ingredients allows you to play around! The original recipe called for all-purpose flour; and I replaced 100 grams (roughly a third) with whole wheat pastry flour. I love how the nuttiness of whole wheat complements bananas, don’t you? Fooling around with different flours is fun, but only if you’re throwing them on the scale. But beware: don’t think you have carte blanche with all flours. Different flours (even wheat) have different properties (gluten) and will alter your product. I find this very interesting, but I also have a pantry stocked with ground teff, buckwheat, millet and sorghum.

Most banana breads call for over-ripened bananas. For this recipe, some exterior black streaks and little black freckles are perfect. If your bananas are black, the sugar content will be quite high, cloying for this bread.

Truc: Don’t mash the bananas fine. Leave them slightly lumpy.

Truc: Toast your pecans first. Cool them completely and then toss them in a spoonful of the 

prepped dry mix (flour).

Truc: Toast a few more ounces of pecans than are called for in the recipe and keep them in a small glass jar. Throw them into a salad or into your yoghurt or into your cooked grains.

Eggs, size large, at room temperature. Buttermilk too, at room temperature.

Excellent quality ingredients will produce an excellent cake.

Be confident and have fun. You’re the boss top banana.

The People vs.. Fielding Mellish

(isn't this Epstein vs. Epstein?)

peace and love,

jane

Banana Bread

Ingredients:

6 oz./178 grams whole toasted and cooled pecans

10.8 oz./306 grams all-purpose flour

            (or, 206 g. all-purpose and 100 g. whole wheat pastry flour.)

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. kosher salt

½ tsp. ground cinnamon

1 ½ - 1 ¾ c./350-400g. mashed (lumpy) very ripe bananas (about 3 large or 4 small)

4 oz./113 g. unsalted butter, room temperature (European style recommended)

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract (Baldwin’s recommended)

11 oz./312 g. granulated sugar

2 eggs, size large, room temperature

¼ c./59 ml. buttermilk

Procedure:

mis en place:

Measure buttermilk and butter.

Preheat oven to 350º F. /176º C.

Place medium bowl on scale and tare. Weigh pecans.

Place pecans on a small, rimmed jelly roll pan (cookie sheet) and toast in oven approx. 5-6 minutes, just until you can smell them. Take care to not burn them. If you do, start over. Remove nuts from oven and cool completely. When cooled, take about a Tbsp. of flour mixture and toss the pecans until they’re coated with the flour.

Bring all cold ingredients to room temperature.

Take out your vanilla.

Prepare a long tea loaf pan or a large, wider loaf pan, or two smaller loaf pans by buttering and flouring (or spraying with release) and flouring.

Place large bowl on scale and tare. Measure flour(s) and remove. Add other dry ingredients to flour: baking soda, salt, cinnamon and whisk together. Set aside.

Place medium bowl on scale and tare. Measure sugar and set aside.

making the bread:

Preheat oven to 375º F./190º C.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar.

Add eggs and continue to mix until creamy consistency. Scrape down sides of bowl, as required. (I use a silicone beater blade and this step is barely required.)

Add vanilla extract and buttermilk. (Mixture will look slightly curdled – this is okay!)

Add ½ flour mixture and mix until just incorporated. Scrape down, as required.

Dump in the mashed banana and mix until just incorporated. Scrape down, if necessary.

Add remaining flour and mix until just incorporated.

Remove the bowl from mixer stand and fold in pecans, making sure that all ingredients are incorporated.

Fill prepared loaf pan(s) and place in oven and bake for approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour (more or less, depending on your pan and your oven), until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool in pans for about 10 minutes and then invert and stand the loaves up straight on a baking rack to cool completely.

This loaf will keep for several days, wrapped well, at room temperature, a week in the fridge, or you can freeze it. But it’s really best eaten the second day, after the flavors have had their chance to dance together.