Are you familiar with the phrase, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade?” I think we should start using its corrolary: When your bananas go sad and bown, make banana bread. Catchy, no? This recipe is from King Arthur’s Whole Grain Baking.
Here are the very ripe bananas in question:
I smashed up the bananas and gathered the mise en place.
I mixed the butter, sugar, and spices. I initially tried to do this with the handheld mixer in a bowl, but the butter refused to incorporate with the sugars, so I switched to the stand mixer. This worked much better.
I added the honey, eggs, and banana…
then added the flour and nuts and mixed in the stand mixer until the flour was mostly incorporated. To prevent overmixing and keep the loaf as tender as possible, I finished the mixing by hand.
I poured the batter into a greased loaf pan and baked it for 50 minutes.
The loaf baked up beautifully and even came out of its pan very nicely.
This bread is delicious! It’s dense, but not stodgy (as the British would say). It’s banana-y, but not too much. It’s sweet, but not too sweet. It’s made with whole wheat flour, but you would never guess it from the flavor or texture. This is another winner from the Whole Grain Baking book.
Until the next time: may your yeast always rise and your flour never run out.
A Baker's Education 