My Banana Bread Experiment

When my sister visited us at the Avocado Apartment, she brought two mini loaves of banana bread she made. They were delicious.

Later, while we were visiting Chris’s cousin, Chris, we had two very ripe bananas at the ranch. My sister’s fabulous banana bread inspired me to make some myself. As I was not in my home kitchen, and the nearest grocery store was a distance away, I had to work with the ingredients I had on hand.

I looked through several recipes before settling on one I found on thekitchn.com. I picked this recipe because it claimed to be a very forgiving recipe if you were short on ingredients.

Banana Bread

Cooking Spray
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
¼ cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 medium bananas, very ripe
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt

After checking to see what ingredients I had to work with, I made a few adjustments. Finessing recipes is new territory for me. I have always made recipes by the book, until recently. My forays into cooking over the last few months have given me the confidence to venture out of the playbook and experiment.

I started by heating the oven to 350-degrees. The recipe called for lining an 8×5-inch loaf pan with parchment paper, spraying it with cooking spray. I did not have parchment paper, so I greased the pan with vegetable oil and hoped for the best.

I melted the butter over low heat on the stove.

I whisked together the melted butter and brown sugar until I had combined the two. The original recipe called for granulated sugar, but I like my banana bread to be dense and moist, so I used brown sugar instead.

Next, I added the eggs, again whisking until the mixture was thoroughly combined and smooth. I did not have milk, so I used water in its place. I added the water and vanilla to the batter and whisked it together.

I only had two bananas. I mashed them and added them to the batter, hoping for the best. I mashed the bananas until there were no lumps, but you can leave them as chunky as you like.

Finally, I added the flour, baking soda, and salt. Since I had self-rising flour, I adjusted the baking soda. Once again, I was unsure of what the results would be. Baking is unlike savory cooking in that it is exact. If you change an essential ingredient or the ratio of ingredients, it can lead to a disastrous outcome.

I looked up replacing all-purpose flour with self-rising. The information I found said it was acceptable to do so for recipes that call for baking powder or both baking powder and baking soda. You leave out the baking powder, and it works fine. It is a little trickier when the recipe calls for just baking soda. After looking at a few different websites, I learned that one teaspoon of baking powder is somewhat equal to ¼ teaspoon of baking soda. I did some math and decided to go with ¾ teaspoon of the baking soda.

I used a spatula to gently stir the dry ingredients into the batter until they were just barely combined, with no dry flour visible. I am not a fan of extra ingredients like nuts or chocolate in my banana bread, but this would be the time to add them if you like either.

I poured the batter into the pan and smoothed the top. I put it into the oven and let it bake for 50 minutes. After that time, I checked the bread.

I do not have a lot of success with inserting a toothpick to check for doneness, so I prefer to use a thermometer. I was looking for a temperature between 200 and 205-degrees. It wasn’t there yet, so I let it cook for another 10 minutes, checking it at five-minute intervals.

When I had the correct temperature, I rested the pan on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. I was nervous about removing the bread from the pan. The original recipe uses parchment paper as a sling to easily remove the bread.

When I first turned the pan over, nothing happened. The bread didn’t move. I ran a butter knife around the inside of the pan, hoping to release the bread. It worked. The banana bread nicely slid out of the pan.

I let it cool for another ten minutes before cutting slices. I slathered the still-warm banana bread with butter and then went one step further. I heated a frying pan and laid the bread in the pan, butter side down until it was toasted golden brown. The brown sugar gave the toasted bread a beautiful, crunchy caramelization.

While both Chrises said the banana bread was perfect, it was a touch dryer than I wanted. I feel that the third banana and using milk would probably give it the moisture level I wanted.

Each one-inch slice has 385 calories, 62 grams carbs, 2 grams fiber, 14 grams fat, and 6 grams protein.

Update 5/19/21:  I made the banana bread again, this time with three bananas.  I still didn’t have milk but did have cream.  As I had guessed, this solved the moisture problem.