Magical Banana Bread
Nov. 28th, 2023 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
writerkitI bought The Southern Baking Book more or less on a whim: the bakery down the street was closing, the books were 20% off, and there was a recipe for cinnamon rolls that took less than a day. (And, I discovered, makes quite a bit; I offloaded several of them on other people.)
Today the bananas I insisted to G. that I was going to eat before they got brown and that weren't going to wind up becoming banana bread... became banana bread. We were lacking some ingredients for the recipe I would normally have used for that but you would think this wouldn't be a problem. I have a massive cookbook wall. Banana bread is a fairly common recipe. This should be fine.
Except everything calls for either whole-wheat flour or wheat germ. (Why is this a thing, Williams-Sonoma Kitchen Library Muffins and Quick Breads? Why do you require me to have wheat germ for this? Banana bread is supposed to be soft and moist!)
So I finally pulled out The Southern Baking Book to see what they had. I used whole cranberries instead of halved blueberries and cinnamon instead of lavender, but it's amazing. Soft and moist without being heavy or close, not too sweet, nice tartness from the cranberries... I think this is my new recipe. I think I will likely purchase bananas with the specific intent of making this in the future. (I do not normally do that; it's normally a side effect of failing to eat bananas purchased for consumption.)
We're two for two on runaway successes with this one; I have high hopes for it becoming a staple book.
(Which amuses me, since I only looked twice at it because of G's rule that I have to at least skim through to see if there are recipes I can/want to eat in it before I purchase a new cookbook. The pie book that was so pretty and eye-catching was pretty much all fruit pies I couldn't eat, so I turned my eyes to the rest of what was on the shelf and here we are.)
A fitting send-off, since G. is about to be away for the entire month of December.
Today the bananas I insisted to G. that I was going to eat before they got brown and that weren't going to wind up becoming banana bread... became banana bread. We were lacking some ingredients for the recipe I would normally have used for that but you would think this wouldn't be a problem. I have a massive cookbook wall. Banana bread is a fairly common recipe. This should be fine.
Except everything calls for either whole-wheat flour or wheat germ. (Why is this a thing, Williams-Sonoma Kitchen Library Muffins and Quick Breads? Why do you require me to have wheat germ for this? Banana bread is supposed to be soft and moist!)
So I finally pulled out The Southern Baking Book to see what they had. I used whole cranberries instead of halved blueberries and cinnamon instead of lavender, but it's amazing. Soft and moist without being heavy or close, not too sweet, nice tartness from the cranberries... I think this is my new recipe. I think I will likely purchase bananas with the specific intent of making this in the future. (I do not normally do that; it's normally a side effect of failing to eat bananas purchased for consumption.)
We're two for two on runaway successes with this one; I have high hopes for it becoming a staple book.
(Which amuses me, since I only looked twice at it because of G's rule that I have to at least skim through to see if there are recipes I can/want to eat in it before I purchase a new cookbook. The pie book that was so pretty and eye-catching was pretty much all fruit pies I couldn't eat, so I turned my eyes to the rest of what was on the shelf and here we are.)
A fitting send-off, since G. is about to be away for the entire month of December.
