Elizabeth’s Banana Bread

DessertsBreads and Coffee Cakes
Written By Blue Wizard

As a person who writes recipes, I’m always on the lookout for inspiration, so that I can achieve the perfect version of a recipe. I had set out to make a stellar basic banana bread. So often, the banana bread I taste, both from home bakers and professionals alike, just doesn’t hit right with me. It always seems to be too soggy, or too dry or to just not have enough banana flavor in it. I figured that a good starting point for this recipe would be to use a recipe I recently acquired from the collection left by my great-grandmother, Elizabeth. As it turns out, great-granny was pretty much spot on with her version. She had the texture down perfectly, and the amount of banana in this bread was through the roof! All I had to do was update the recipe for the 21st century, and make a couple of little Blue Wizard tweaks, and Bob’s your Uncle!

 
 

One of the small tweaks that I made to the method of the recipe was to incorporate the nuts into the flour mixture before mixing with the wet ingredients. I feel like this is a relatively recent development in the baking world, and it really prevents your nuts and other mix-ins from sinking to the bottom of your bakes. Another tweak I had to make was just in the wording of the recipe. My great-grandmother’s version listed 1/2 cup of “Nut Meats.” I’ll be honest that this one stumped me for a minute before I realized that back in the day, it was harder to find packaged, shelled nuts. The type of nut that goes into banana bread is usually either a pecan or a walnut. Both come in large shells which are inedible. She was specifying that you wanted just the nut and not the shell. These days, I feel we don’t have to be so specific as it’s actually harder to find a pecan with the shell on.

Most quick bread recipes these days use oil as the fat. My great-grandmother’s recipe used butter. Therefore the whole thing comes together more like a cake than a bread. That being said, though you can get a softer texture using oil, the flavor from the butter can’t be beat. Add that to the fact that the bananas in this recipe already make for a softer texture in banana bread, and I feel like the oil is what makes most versions of this way too soggy for my taste. You’ll notice here that my butter was soft enough for me to mix the butter and sugar by hand, but if yours isn’t, feel free to use an electric mixer for this step.


Another ingredient that needed a bit of updating was the “sour milk” that was listed in my great-grandmother’s version. Souring milk is a lost art that most people don’t bother with these days. I felt that changing the sour milk into buttermilk does the same thing, and is a heck of a lot easier, especially for such a small amount. I also added vanilla and salt to the wet ingredients. These were absent from Elizabeth’s original recipe and when I tried it out the first time, I thought that it could use the flavor boost from these flavor-enhancing staples.

Now we come to the star of the show, the bananas! You always want to use bananas that are past their prime for banana bread. That being said, since this recipe incorporates 3 whole bananas, the chances that you’ll accidentally have 3 overripe bananas in your house are pretty slim. I have a trick for this. If you buy some ripe bananas from the grocery store the day ahead, you can easy speed up the change in texture by throwing the bananas into the freezer overnight, and then defrosting them when you want to bake. Not only does this brown the bananas faster, the freezing also breaks the bananas down making them easier to mash. Warning: do not do this with UNDER ripe bananas. You want the bananas to have had enough time to develop their sugary sweetness. Underripe bananas will turn brown and break down in the freezer, but they won’t develop any sugar, and your bread will not taste like banana at all.

A note about this batter: If you use large bananas, which you should, you’ll end up with just a little bit too much batter for your loaf pan. You never want to fill a loaf pan more than 3/4 full. Doing so will prevent the bread for baking all the way through even if you bake it for the full hour. If you are desperate to prevent any food waste from the small amount of batter that you leave behind in the bowl, then feel free to put the small amount leftover into one cup of a muffin pan, and fill the other cups with water. Baking this for about 10-15 minutes will result in a little banana muffin that you can enjoy as a chef’s treat! One more note concerning the pan: That is to line it with a parchment paper piece that is wider than it is long. This will give you a nice sling that you can use to remove the hot bread from the pan. Super cinchy!

The bake on this bread has a wide range of time. It could take as little as 45 minutes and as much as 1 hour. This really depends on your bananas. Larger bananas result in more batter and more moisture, therefore more bake time. Smaller bananas will result in the opposite. The recipe is written so that you know the time for any banana level you can throw at it. In any case, you’re looking for a crack in the center and you should be able to insert a toothpick in that crack, and have it come out clean.

I really hope that you enjoy this collab between myself and my great-grandmother, Elizabeth. Its fun to think of legacy recipes getting passed on, and used time and time again. If you have any legacy recipes that you’d like to share, I’d love to hear from you. New is great, but older is classic and hard to beat!

Remember you don’t have to be pro to make magic in your kitchen!!

Joe the Blue Wizard

Banana Bread

Banana Bread

Yield 12
Author Joe the Blue Wizard
Prep time
5 Min
Cook time
1 Hour
Total time
1 H & 5 M
Do you have some extra bananas in the house, but you just can't stomach eating another one plain? Don't you worry, my great-grandmother Elizabeth has you covered! When I was searching for the perfect balanced banana bread recipe, I happened to stumble across it in a box of my great-grandmother's old recipes. Just a few tweaks later to update the recipe, we have what you see here: not too dry, not too moist, and choc-full of banana flavor!

Ingredients

  • 2 Cups (240 g) All-Purpose Flour
  • 1 Tsp. (7 g) Baking Soda
  • 1/2 Cup (50 g) Chopped Pecans (or walnuts)
  • 1 Stick (110 g) Unsalted Butter
  • 1 Cup (200 g) Granulated Sugar
  • 2 Large Eggs
  • 1/2 Tsp. (3 g) Salt
  • 1/4 Cup (60 mL) Buttermilk
  • 1 Tsp. (5 mL) Vanilla Extract
  • 3 Bananas (Brown)

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
  2. Prepare a normal sized loaf pan by spraying with non-stick cooking spray and lining with a parchment sling for easy removal.
  3. In a medium bowl whisk to combine flour, baking soda and chopped pecans.
  4. In a large bowl, whisk or blend together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
  5. Add eggs, salt, buttermilk and vanilla and whisk to combine.
  6. In a small bowl, smash peeled bananas until resembles a paste.
  7. Add smashed bananas to the other wet ingredients and whisk until smooth.
  8. Add dry ingredients into wet ingredients and fold until just combined. A few dry pockets of flour may remain.
  9. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan. Do not fill more than 3/4 of the way up the pan.
  10. Place onto middle rack of oven and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour. A toothpick inserted in the very center will come out clean. A crack will likely form in the top.
  11. Remove from oven and let cool in the pan for 5 minutes before running a knife along the exposed edges of the bread and removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
  12. Slice and enjoy!

Nutrition Facts

Calories

279.75

Fat (grams)

12.13 g

Sat. Fat (grams)

5.5 g

Carbs (grams)

40.2 g

Fiber (grams)

1.77 g

Net carbs

38.44 g

Sugar (grams)

20.79 g

Protein (grams)

4.05 g

Sodium (milligrams)

219.38 mg

Cholesterol (grams)

48.08 mg
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