Chaotically, a Banana Bread recipe
Hello, this is my first post here. I'm not sure what the content of my blog will be but for now I will use it to post recipes to things that I make. They're not particularly novel recipes or ideas, but this is the best place for me to keep these for my own personal reference—hence the chaotic matter in which they will be written. You're welcome to try these recipes or not.
————————————– “Classic” Banana Bread —————————————-
This is the first thing that I learned to bake in this pandemic, it's essentially a fool-proof recipe but as a certified fool I can guarantee even a fool can do it!
—————————————Here's what you need——————————————
Loaf Tin (5x7 inches is what I use) and Some Kind of Non-Stick Spray or Butter
3 Very Ripe Bananas (I'll usually do up to 5 if I bought a bunch from the store and forgot about them)
2 Eggs (preferably at room temperature; doesn't matter what kind, but I use large eggs so size might matter a bit)
½ Cup Unsalted butter (OR canola oil, although I would change it to a little less than a ½ cup out of personal preference; OR Greek Yogurt, this is a great alternative option that I love to use when I can.) *ALSO: If you have no unsalted butter or alternatives, use salted butter. Just make sure to remove the salt from the recipe. I find that salted butter makes the whole thing a little too salty for me but it's not world ending.
1 Cup Light Brown Sugar OR Dark Brown Sugar
1 ¾ Cup of All Purpose Flour (I haven't tried alternatives here)
Pinch of Salt (No salt if you're using salted butter)
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/3 Buttermilk (OR Whole Milk with a bit of white vinegar or lemon juice) **NOTE: I usually don't add any of this and my bread seems fine, so I guess this is optional (?)
1 Teaspoon Vanilla extract (More or less if you like vanilla flavour)
½ Cup of Walnuts (More or less, this is optional really)
Pinch of Cinnamon (Optional)
Okay so you got your ingredients, good job you. Here's the steps to put everything together, pay attention to the order because it matters. I've had some messed up breads from accidentally getting things out of order.
————————————————Steps——————————————————-
Start by Pre-Heating your Oven to 325°F
While that's happening, peel put your bananas into a bowl and with a spoon or spatula start mashing them up. I like my bananas chunky so I only mash enough that the bananas are in smaller chunks. As you add more ingredients the bananas will get even more mashed, so don't over-mash if you want chunky bananas. If you don't like chunks, go ahead and liquify them babey.
Once you are done mashing, add eggs, milk (IF you're using it, otherwise not needed), butter (Make sure to melt it first) and vanilla. Mix them!
Next, add your sugar and mix again. Again, don't over mix if you want banana chunks, just do enough folding so that the ingredients are evenly distributed in the bowl.
Add your flour, baking soda and salt (if you are not using salted butter) and mix until all combined.
OPTIONAL Mix in your walnuts and/or cinnamon. If you have any other things you wanna add like chocolate chips or other types of nuts, this is the time to do it.
Spray your Baking Tin (Or butter it), make sure to get it in good. Not too much where it pools, and not too little where you can see ungreased parts of your tin.
Finally, you'll want to start pouring in your batter to the greased baking tin. Once it's poured in the tin you can decorate with walnuts on top if you want.
Pop the tin into the oven once the oven is done pre-heating, I usually put the tin on the rack in the middle (Lower 3rd). Bake for 60 minutes. **NOTE: 60 minutes is the “standard time”, depending on your oven that might be enough for you or not enough. I usually find it to be about 15~20 minutes not enough for me, so I check at the 60 minute mark with a toothpick to gauge how much more time my bread needs. I only take the bread out once the toothpick doesn't come back with goops of batter.
Take out of the oven and cool for 15~20 minutes in the pan. After that you can remove the loaf from the pan to cool for another 15 minutes, or you can be a godless heathen and start slicing into it right away. Damned be the roof of your mouth. Enjoy!
Okay well, that was my banana bread recipe! Not much to it, once you get the hang of it you can edit it to the way it works for you. Also, I'm sure there's hundreds of ways to alter it to other people's taste, but this is what I like and how I do it and this recipe is mostly for me since I keep losing my paper where I wrote this recipe down originally. But, I'm happy to hear from anyone that has suggestions or tried my recipe out!
Alright, until next time~!