Banana bread

Cousin F's banana bread has been wowing unsuspecting Germans since 2013. That is to say, Cousins F and E moved to the Heimatland Germany and brought along their ridiculous banana bread recipe, which they then prepared and served to their friends residing in their quaint German city. Having never seen such fine Bananenbrot, the Germans came back over and over again for Kaffee und Kuchen, each time asking coyly for this particular Kuchen, until there was no more Bananenbrot to be had. At least that's how I imagine the dramatic retelling.

The point is that this banana bread is crazy good. It's got fabulous flavor. Even if you mess it up. Which I did.

The other point is that this post is timely because I am on my way to visit Cousins E and F this week.

Ingredients

Dry mix
1 1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick unsalted butter, soft
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup mashed ripe bananas
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Pecans, chocolate chips as wanted


1. Preheat oven to 350 F / 175 C. Butter and flour the bread pan.

2. Mix dry ingredients together in a separate bowl. Sift. 

3. Beat softened butter until fluffy.

4. Add sugars.

5. Add eggs, one at a time.

6. Add mashed bananas.

7. Add lemon juice and vanilla.

8. Pour 1/3 of the mix into the pan, sprinkle with pecans or chocolate chips. Pour another 1/3. Repeat. Pour the remaining 1/3. Bake loaf for 1 hour and 5 minutes. Bake muffins for 20 minutes.

I'm realizing what I enjoy about baking is that I'm constantly making mistakes that I get immediate feedback about. Texture. Form. Color. Presentation. They are all so easy to mess up, research, and improve. Just a little. But every time. 

Never have I wanted to be better at chemistry than after making this recipe—by all accounts an excellent recipe that was not intended to be gluten-free. Between starting this post and actually publishing, I spent a few hours reading about baking soda and baking powder, xanthan gum, gluten-free flour blending, working with gluten-free flour, baking by weight, and cakes rising and falling. And everything, of course, came down to understanding the underlying chemical reactions. [Admittedly, "understanding" is a strong word for my now adequate, superficial knowledge.]

Don't do that

I used Thomas Keller's cup-for-cup gluten-free flour mix (which, side note, I accidentally ordered in bulk and which now sits in my non-industrial kitchen in an industrial kitchen package). Though I've come to love this mix for its flavor and its gluten-mimicking properties, I've also noticed that it's not appropriate for certain, flatter items (shortbreads, crepes, etc.) in unadapted recipes because it—and I can't believe I'm saying this about gf flour—rises too much. Here, it is the appropriate flour, but the recipe isn't perfectly adapted for it. I didn't adapt at all. Don't do that. Instead, reduce the baking soda and baking powder to 3/4 teaspoon each.

Because gluten-free batters have to have the consistency of thick pancake batter to rise well, they often look too wet or too dry (as here). Assuming these wouldn't rise, I overfilled the muffin tins to 3/4 and watched them go nuts. Don't do that. Fill to 1/2.

I have been collecting ripe bananas for weeks in my freezer. When I pulled the bananas out for this recipe, I let them defrost about 80%. Because of that, two things were off: 1) the moisture in this recipe was both too high and inconsistent across muffins, causing them to rise like an ingenue popover and fall like a jaded souffle. 2) The individual muffins were too tender when cool and would—somewhat deliciously—not hold their own form. Don't do that. Instead, fully defrost the bananas. Drain the bananas. Mash the bananas. Then add to the batter. 

Adapted from Cousin F's recipe.