I love banana bread.
I had a tasty recipe for it, but lost it.
The recipe in the Joy of Cooking is barely adequate.
I need your Banana Nut bread orange bread, apple bread…etc Recipes.
Why don’t you like the recipe in Joy of Cooking? It’s the one I use and the boys (including my husband who usually doesn’t care for bananas and banana-flavored baked goods) love it.
Clearly you aren’t doing it right…
Another vote for the Joy of Cooking recipe. What’s it lack that you’re looking for?
It dawned on me that the recipe in Joy yeilds a light and cake-light bread. If one were looking for a richer, denser banana bread, I could see how that recipe might not satisfy.
Either way, I will not betray Joy by helping you find another recipe. I’ll see you in hell first. Hell!
Pfffft. My mom makes the best banana nut bread, but it is **very ** dense.
-------------------------------------**
DEVENA’S MAMA’S BANANA NUT BREAD**
2 sticks butter (not margarine and, god forbid, anything from a tub)
2½ c sugar
4 eggs
½ c buttermilk!!!
2 t vanilla
1½ t baking soda
Dash salt
2 c mashed bananas (as ripe as you can get them before they start to decay)
3 c plain flour
At least 1½ to 2 c chopped nuts (preferably pecans, but walnuts are good too)
Mix in order listed. Use a stand mixer. Fold in nuts last. Pour into prepared bundt pan.
Bake 300º - 1½ hours
Eat warm with butter. Wipe drool off chin. (That reminds me - I need to ask for one for Christmas!!)
Technically a fruit cake, but much better. Actually edible. Makes 2 or 3 regular cakes, depending on the size of your pans. (My aunt has this huge wreath pan that she uses.) I make 1 bundt cake and lots of muffins. MMMMMmm nutty rum muffins.
AUNT JEANNE’S NUT CAKE
6 c flour
3 1/3 c sugar (1½ lb)
1 lb butter
6 eggs
2 lbs raisins
½ lb chopped dried apricots
½ lb chopped dried cherries
¼ lb chopped orange peel
½ gallon chopped nuts
Mix as fruit cake, reserving a little flour to dredge fruit in before putting fruit into batter.
Bake at least 4 hours at 300º. After cooling, drizzle with rum and wrap tightly in plastic wrap.
A good trick I picked up from the Moosewood Cookbook is to soak the bananas in one cup of very strong black coffee before adding them to the recipe. I let them soak for about an hour, then drain off some of the excess coffee and mash 'em up with the rest. VERY tasty.
I’m at work right now, on break. As a baker I have a lot of recipes, including banana bread, but I’ve only got ten minutes left on my break period. I can post a couple when I get home, and also my grandmother’s, which is my favorite. In the meantime I can recommend the following website, which has more and better recipes for everything. It also will give you nutritional values, change measurements to metric and back, and resize the original recipe if you want to make more.
I love that site.
My Mom used to make the best banana bread – dense, moist, just excellent. Her secret was to use the most overripe, black bananas she could find. She’d go to the grocery and buy their worse black bananas for a few cents, and make the best banana breads.
Sorry, no recipe and Mom’s gone now. Man, this makes me miss her more – I always got banana breads for Christmas!!
The Joy of Cooking recipe tastes flat & dry. My old recipe I know had either buttermilk or vanilla in it.
Thanks Devena!
ZUCCHINI BREAD
Beat together…
3 eggs
3 teaspoons vanilla
2 C sugar
1 C oil
2 C grated zucchini
Sift together…
3 C flour
1/2 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
3 t cinnamon
1 t salt & 1/2 C chopped nuts…
Add moist and dry and bake at 325 for 50 minutes. Makes 2 loaves.
ROCKLE’S BOOZY BANANA BREAD
3 extremely ripe (i.e., very-brown-to-black) bananas
2 Tbsp. banana liqueur (or rum, or vanilla extract)
1-1/4 cups sifted flour
1/2 cup wheat germ (or 1/4 cup wheat germ and 1/4 cup instant oats)
2-1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground mace (or nutmeg)
5 Tbsp. butter, softened
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
[ol]
[li]At least 1 hour before baking, mash bananas and combine with liqueur. Cover and marinate in refrigerator until ready to use.[/li][li]Preheat oven to 350°F.[/li][li]Whisk together flour, wheat germ, baking pwoder, salt, cinnamon, and mace.[/li][li]Cream butter and sugar together, then cut into flour mixture.[/li][li]Add beaten eggs to refrigerated banana mixture, then add wet mixture to flour mixture.[/li][li]Beat until well combined.[/li][li]Pour into greased loaf pan and bake at 350°F for 1 hour or until done.[/li][/ol]-----
For whatever it may be worth, I have made this banana bread with all flour, and I find I prefer the “crunch” of the added wheat germ and/or oatmeal. I am allergic to nuts so I use the other stuff instead. If you want to use nuts, add 1/2 cup of nuts to the mashed bananas and marinate the nuts as well.
Thank you all for your input. I am going to try one of the recipes tonight. I ain’t saying which one cause I don’t want anyone to gloat here.
It won’t be tonight, but I’m going to try the one with the booze.