Those of you following the travails of Mermaid staffers are warned that this post is, well, it's actually about food. Food we don't serve at the cafe, come to think of it. Banana bread. For I, creator of the blog, fictionalizer of staff, maker of genius-quality sandwiches, am also capable of fully realizing the best banana bread in Dane County.
We have all been tortured by dry, tasteless, spongy, banana bread. I personally tortured my husband and my oldest child through many, many versions of burnt, dry, or raw in the middle banana breads. As my staff now know, when things go badly for me, my first reaction is to weep, so let's give it up for Ben & Quinn who suffered and were ultimately rewarded with tasty, fattening, moist banana bread.
My mother, Katie, who makes arguably just as good of banana bread as me, taught me to make it. That is to say, my mother made it in front of me my whole life while I took little to no notice except when called upon to consume. Then I had to cajole, coerce, spy, and steal the secrets that make it so good. Upset as a young adult, I would call her and say, it's so dry. She would say, Oh? Hmmm...well, keep trying. Wench. She was probably biting her hand to keep from laughing at me.
The secrets. The secrets are easy, but rarely written about. But here on my blog I will reveal my top secret banana bread recipe, and the two easiest things anyone can do to pull off decent banana bread.
Secret One: If you would eat it, it doesn't belong in your bread. Banana bread bananas are disgusting. They are black, they are smelly pools of liquid that have little black hairs in them. They slip out of the peels like something from the bottom of a pond. If you are not willing to do this, your banana bread will always be inferior. So when your bananas go bad, stick'em in the freezer. When you're ready to bake, thaw them out to room temp and then peel.
Secret Two: Pop them out of the pan and wrap those babies up in tinfoil while they're still hot. Not plastic, tinfoil! Not tupperware, tinfoil! Then stick them in the fridge to cure. I usually make mini-loaves (Williams-Sonoma makes some that are really half-loaves with is even better) so that we can eat one right away, when it's mostly tasteless but hot and you're dying to eat it. The others are for when the loaves are cool, and dense, and moist, and flavorful.
The Recipe1.5 C white whole wheat flour
1/2 C white sugar
1/2 C br. sugar
1/8 C honey
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
10 T butter, softened (it's more than a stick but worth it)
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
3 or 4 super-ripe bananas, a little more than a cup mashed, at room temperature
1 T fresh finely grated ginger.
1/4 C ground nuts, if desired
Preheat oven to 350. Grease bread pan. Sift, flour, soda, and salt together in large bowl. Set aside. Beat butter and sugars (not honey!) till fluffy. Add eggs one at a time. Add vanilla. Add honey, then bananas. Stir this very liquidy mixture into the dries in the bowl by hand. Last, stir in ginger, then nuts if using. Mix thoroughly and spoon into pan. Bake between 45-60 minutes (seriously, ovens are soooo different) until wooden pick comes out clean in center. Bread will brown quickly because of addition of honey. Let cool a couple minutes, then turn out and wrap in foil. If you are using mini loaves, the bread will be done much more quickly so keep an eye out, 25-35 min.
