Banana Bread

What's soft, sweet and absolutely delicious when thrown in with bread? 

Bananas obviously and I've got a whole group of salseros willing to back that up. At least that's the message I got as I walked out with an empty dish from our Labor Day pot luck.

I was originally planning on taking some simple cookies but thank goodness I had some bananas left over from that diet. I'm sure you've heard of that diet, you know, the one that never gets started. 

I had tried a simple banana bread recipe from Better Home and Gardens which was perfect. I then tried changing it up by using plantains instead which was not so perfect, refer to sweet flukes if you care to know more on that disappointment.

As for now enjoy the tried and true Original Banana Bread Recipe:

Prep: 20 mins

Bake: 45 to 50 minutes

Cool: 10 minutes

Yield: 2 loaves

Banana Bread

2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 eggs, lightly beaten

2 cups mashed ripe bananas ( about 4 to 5 medium bananas)

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Walnut Topping

3 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons all purpose flour

4 teaspoons butter

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease bottom and 1/2 way up sides  of 2 loaf pans and set aside. In a large bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.

2. In another bowl stir together eggs, bananas, sugar and oil. Make a well in the center of flour mixture and pour in egg mixture. Stir until combined. The batter is meant to look lumpy. Fold in walnuts and spoon batter into pans.

3. Now for the topping combine brown sugar and flour in small bowl. With a pastry blender cut butter in until you have a crumbly mixture. If you don't get that crumbly texture don't panic. The 3 times I did this recipe I never got that texture but it was still a damn good banana bread. So stir in walnuts in crumbly or not mixture and sprinkle over batter.

4. Place on middle rack and bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until wooden toothpick inserted comes out clean. To prevent top from over browning cover in foil for last 15 minutes.

5. Cool in pans for 10 minutes. Remove from pans and cool completely on cooling rack. Recipe recommends cooling overnight before slicing but usually my baking nights are on an "I'm craving it right now" basis and so I waited about 2 hours before I sliced into it. My slice was not only totally fine but it was still warm from the oven which made it heaven in my mouth.

Sweet Flukes

Bananas make a great addition to dessert but I love plantains/platanos which led to my not so great substitute idea. Platanos were part of our breakfast, lunch, and dinner in my family. Sometimes even dessert when my mother decided to sprinkle a little brown sugar. So figured it'd be a simple swap for a nice a little twist on banana bread. Nope I was wrong. The bread lacked sweetness, it possibly needed double the amount of sugar. Banana bread version 2 was my reminder that baking is chemistry and you can't just swap you got to make adjustments to it all. So once I get all those adjustments down I'll be sure to let you in on the good and bad of this recipe redo. Until then enjoy original which one can never go wrong with.