Banana Bread

I rarely buy bananas. I like them firm, almost hard, and so the last of the bunch nearly always ripen too far before I remember them. They stay on the kitchen table, and every morning they are a little darker than the day before.

Everyone knows those last two. The skin is covered in brown spots and the banana smells sweet, almost of rum. Nobody wants to eat them as they are, but for baking they are now at their best, because the starch has turned to sugar and there is more flavour in them than in a yellow banana. The caramel taste of banana bread comes from exactly these. So they need not go in the bin, since this easy loaf takes two.

I came to know banana bread while I was living in Boston. It sat on café counters there in thick slices wrapped in cling film, and I often bought one to go with my coffee. The slice was heavy and moist, and it left a greasy print on the film. It took a while to get used to something called bread being sweet.

Banana bread found its way into American cookbooks in the 1930s, as baking powder and bicarbonate of soda became common in home kitchens. Small wonder, when yeast bread has to be kneaded and waited for, whereas with baking powder you stir the batter together in a bowl and put it straight into the oven. That is why Americans call bakes of this kind quick breads.

In texture banana bread is a cake. The batter is not kneaded and no yeast raises it. It is stirred together in a bowl like a cake batter, and as little as possible. In an ordinary bread elasticity is exactly what you are after, but here it only does harm, so I put the spatula down as soon as the flour is moistened. An overmixed batter makes a rubbery loaf.

Half the sugar is brown, and it gives the loaf moisture and a toffee flavour that white sugar alone would not. I fry the chopped nuts in a pan before adding them to the batter. They begin to colour and smell in a moment, and in the finished loaf you notice the difference. The bananas are mashed by hand or with a fork, and the batter is meant to stay a little lumpy. The recipe's 120 ml measures look odd. They are American half cups, and 175 degrees is the 350 Fahrenheit of an American oven.

I baked this loaf in the week before Christmas, on an afternoon when it was dark outside before four. The loaf is done when the crust is dark brown and a skewer pushed into the middle comes out clean. I turned it out of the tin onto a sheet of foil on the chopping board and cut the first slice straight away, although it was still too hot to cut neatly.

Recipe card

Banana Bread

Print

• Oven 175 °C
• Baking 55-60 min
• Tin e.g. 10 x 30 x 7 cm

You will need

70 g	butter, at room temperature
120 ml	sugar
120 ml	soft brown sugar, measured firmly packed
1	egg
2	egg whites
1 tsp	vanilla extract
2	ripe bananas
400 ml	plain flour
1 tsp	bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp	baking powder
1/2 tsp	salt
120 ml	cream
120 ml	chopped nuts

Method

1. Heat the oven to 175 °C. Grease a rectangular loaf tin (for example 10 x 30 x 7 cm) and coat it with breadcrumbs, or line it with baking parchment.
2. Mash the bananas by hand or with a fork to a soft pulp.
3. Crush the nuts coarsely and fry them in a pan for a moment, until they begin to brown a little and turn aromatic.
4. Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl of their own and set aside.
5. In another bowl, beat the butter until fluffy. Add the sugar and the brown sugar and mix well. Mix in the vanilla extract, the egg and the egg whites.
6. Add the mashed banana and beat at high speed for half a minute. The batter is meant to stay a little lumpy, so put the hand mixer or stand mixer away at this point. Too much mixing makes the loaf rubbery, like a muffin.
7. With a spatula, fold the flour mixture and the cream gently into the banana mixture, alternating between flour and cream a couple of times.
8. Finally add the nuts in the same way. Mix until the dry ingredients have only just combined with the wet and the batter is still slightly uneven.
9. Pour the batter into the tin in an even layer and bake for 55-60 minutes, until a skewer pushed into the middle comes out clean.

Good warm, excellent cold as well over the following days.

Banana bread is good warm, but excellent cold as well over the following days, once the flavours have had time to settle.