Banana Bread: Tips & Techniques

[CanadianBakin']

This is just a start to your trouble shooting but are you sifting the baking soda to make sure there's no lumps?

[prasantrin]

This is just a start to your trouble shooting but are you sifting the baking soda to make sure there's no lumps?

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Ummmmm...I'd like to say yes, but I don't really remember. I do delump my baking soda before throwing it into the rest of the dry ingredients, so I don't think I have lumps of baking soda in there. At least not large ones. I might have some small lumps of flour, but the bitterness definitely didn't taste like flour.

I have three bananas left, so I thought I'd try again. But now bananas are a heck of a lot darker than they were last week. Could overripe bananas be bitter?

[Danielle Lauer]

I recently posted a recipe for banana bread that I've basically perfected to my taste... it's on my blog here.

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Did anyone save this recipe from the blog 'floatingnib'?

I tried this last summer and it was fantastic but only bookmarked the website and now the blog is no longer available!

Help!! This was _amazing_ banana bread!!

Thanks!

[CaliPoutine]

I recently posted a recipe for banana bread that I've basically perfected to my taste... it's on my blog here.

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Did anyone save this recipe from the blog 'floatingnib'?

I tried this last summer and it was fantastic but only bookmarked the website and now the blog is no longer available!

Help!! This was _amazing_ banana bread!!

Thanks!

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You might try PMing the member and see if he'll give it to you.

[paulraphael]

I've noticed a lot of these recipes are leavened just with baking soda. Where does the acid come from. The bananas??

[Rehovot]

I've noticed a lot of these recipes are leavened just with baking soda. Where does the acid come from. The bananas??

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I just made banana-bread muffins, today, and there's baking soda in the recipe, along with 1/8 tsp. of vinegar (which hardly seems like enough to really do anything). Other recipes I noticed included buttermilk.

(The more ingredients (coconut, chocolate chips, oats, nuts) in banana bread, the merrier, as far as I'm concerned.)

[Girl-from-mars]

Hi Everyone

Wondering if anyone has a Caramel Banana bread. My partner is currently addicted to the Starbucks Caramel Banana bread and we want to make our own.. but i no recipe for it nor could i find one on google.

Im not a big baker and the few banana breads i have tried making have come out like cake rather than dense like i think a banana bread should be. So ok im looking for 2 things really LOL

1. A Banana bread recipe that is dense

2. A Caramel banana bread recipe or how to turn a normal banana bread recipe into Caramel banana bread

Thanks

Kath =)

[Tri2Cook]

I'm not familiar with Starbucks caramel banana bread (actually I'm not really familiar with anything Starbucks now, haven't been in one in about 10 years). Is it caramel flavored banana bread or banana bread with pieces of caramel in it or what?

[Girl-from-mars]

Hi

Its got caramel flavour to it.. no pieces/lumps/icing =)

Im not a starbucks fan myself but for my partner ill try anything to stop him spending $3.50 a slice LMAO

Kath

Edited April 16, 2008 by Girl-from-mars (log)

[prasantrin]

Hi

Its got caramel flavour to it.. no pieces/lumps/icing =)

Im not a starbucks fan myself but for my partner ill try anything to stop him spending $3.50 a slice LMAO

Kath

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I once had a recipe for a caramel apple loaf cake, and the caramel flavour came primarily from creaming butter and a lot of brown sugar together. You could start with a basic banana bread recipe that uses butter, and sub brown sugar for the white sugar. See how that works, then tweak from there.

[Girl-from-mars]

Ohhh tinkering... that could end in disaster. I was looking at the CI recipe, the picture they have looks about the density im looking for. So you suggest just subing brown sugar for the white sugar.. i can do that hehehe i think

[prasantrin]

Ohhh tinkering... that could end in disaster.  I was looking at the CI recipe, the picture they have looks about the density im looking for.  So you suggest just subing brown sugar for the white sugar.. i can do that hehehe i think

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I think I've read that brown sugar has more moisture than white sugar, so you might have to adjust for that, but I would probably just do a straight 1:1 substitution. It's just banana bread, after all, so a little extra moisture won't kill it (plus I'm just too lazy to bother thinking about it ).

[prasantrin]

I don't know where (if) there's a baking disaster topic, so I'm sticking this here.

Tonight I decided I needed banana bread, so I looked up CI's recipe. Looked easy and fast enough, so I went for it. Mixed everything up and thought, "Hmmmm, this recipe is a little drier than most banana bread recipes."

Poured the batter in a parchment-lined pan and stuck it in the oven. Less than 30 seconds later, I noticed a pot on the stove--forgot to put in the melted butter! No wonder it was so dry!

Stopped the oven, scraped the batter back into the bowl and mixed in the melted butter. Lined the pan with new parchment paper and baked it again.

Then I realized I used twice as much butter as I should have!! That's 170 grams instead of 85!!

More butter doesn't make better banana bread. You'd think it would, but. . . not so much.

Who said banana bread was supposed to be easy? :sigh:

[Shel_B]

Has anyone tried this?

 

CLICK HERE for the story

 

" ... I came across a blog post from Zingerman's Bakehouse that discloses they've been including the whole banana—peel and all!—in their banana bread for years."

 

Edited June 4, 2024 by Shel_B (log)

[pastrygirl]

no, but in a similar vein it blew my mind when another pastry chef didn't hull his strawberries, just roasted and pureed the whole berry for his ice cream 🤷‍♀️

[TdeV]

Who knew? Thanks!

[AAQuesada]

I love to roast whole bananas in their peel just gives them a great flavor but I've never actually used the peel itself! 

[lemniscate]

I've made banana syrup out of the peels, just sugar them and let the sit for a while.  Very intense banana flavor.   It's rare we have bananas in the house.  I like the finger bananas from the Asian market over the Cavendish any day.

[oli]

Staff note: This post and the responses that follow have been split from The World’s Best Banana Bread discussion, as comments in Recipe Gullet are supposed to be very specific to concerns/difficulties related to the recipe in question.

 

I wonder how this recipe compares to my favourite from ATK.?

[ElsieD]

2 minutes ago, oli said:

I wonder how this recipe compares to my favourite from ATK.?

If this is the one where you reduce banana juice, I made it and truthfully, I couldn't tell the difference between that one and others, except for the fact the ATK one was more work.  But then, I'm no connoisseur, as I make it for others, not myself.

[Tropicalsenior]

56 minutes ago, oli said:

I wonder how this recipe compares to my favourite from ATK.?

I can't speak to a comparison because I've not familiar with that recipe. This is the only recipe that I've used for 30 years.

I can only tell you that this bread is very moist with a very pronounced banana flavor. It's also very simple to make. I used to give it as Christmas gifts and some years I made well over 100 loaves and Mini loaves. I always included recipe cards in both Spanish and English.

[MaryIsobel]

It looks great = I'm going to try it. I'm going to make a bunch of quick bread to serve the day after my daughter's wedding. For those who come to help, we'll have coffee and tea, juice, yogurt cups, bagels and cream cheese and peanut butter and jam, along with a fruit plate.

[Tropicalsenior]

5 minutes ago, MaryIsobel said:

I'm going to make a bunch of quick bread to serve the day after my daughter's wedding.

I used to make mini loaves of this to give as Christmas presents and every Thanksgiving I would make little Loaves, gift wrap them and put them on all the plates as favors. As I remember, each batch makes five to six mini loaves depending on the size of the pan.

[lemniscate]

The bananas used make a huge difference.  I no longer buy any Cavendish variety.  I use the finger bananas or the Thai varieties that the local Asian markets stock.  Night and day difference in flavor depth.

 

I will set a reminder for this bread when baking season is here again.  Too ruddy hot here at the moment.

 

Mini-loaves for the win.

[Tropicalsenior]

6 minutes ago, lemniscate said:

Night and day difference in flavor depth.

I couldn't agree more. The finger bananas are much sweeter and with a greater depth of flavor. However they are not available everywhere and if you must use regular bananas, be sure that they are completely ripe and starting to go soft. Too green and you get no flavor, and completely black will give it an unpleasant aftertaste.