Archive for: banana bread
The next time you have overripe bananas in your kitchen, don’t make a banana bread. Instead, make some Banana Whoopie Pies. The classic whoopie pie is a chocolate cookie with a vanilla filling. This is a great combination in many types of desserts, but there is something about the soft, cake-like outer cookie and the creamy filling that make whoopie pies almost irresistible. This banana version is even better.
Soft, banana bread-like cookies are the base of these whoopie pies. The batter is somewhere between the thickness of banana bread batter and cookie dough, which lets the whoopie pies hold their shape well during baking, but spread out enough to make a good-sized sandwich. The cake is tender and very moist, with just a little bit of cinnamon and vanilla to highlight the flavor of the banana – which comes through very clearly. I used a cream cheese filling to sandwich the pies together. The cream cheese goes very well with the banana, and adds a little bit of tanginess that contrasts with the sweetness of the cake.
This recipe doesn’t make a huge batch of whoopie pies, but the pies are generously sized. You can easily double the recipe to make more, or scale down the size of your pies (and reduce the baking time by a couple of minutes) to get smaller, bite-sized pies and get more of them. These keep well when stored in an airtight container at room temperature, but they are so moist and flavorful that I bet you’ll find them as difficult to resist as I do.
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You’re probably used to seeing banana bread that is dark and dense looking, and often full of brown sugar and spices. Banana bread made like this is delicious, but as with all things, it never hurts to have a little variety in your recipe book. The last time I had a bunch of ripe bananas in the kitchen, I decided to give banana bread a lighter color and flavor by turning it into Vanilla Bean Banana Bread.
This banana bread recipe is not that different from other banana bread recipes, but it has vanilla incorporated into it in two ways. It includes a generous amount of vanilla extract and is made with vanilla sugar. Vanilla sugar is simply sugar that has been infused with vanilla bean. Vanilla sugar can be mixed up just before using, but the flavor becomes more potent after it has been sitting around, so make a big batch (you can always replenish simply by adding more sugar, or a fresh vanilla bean from time to time) and keep it in the pantry. I keep this on hand all the time, as it goes very well in coffee and other baked goods, and it is a great way to use up leftover vanilla beans after you’ve made a custard or pudding.
The banana bread bakes up to be very moist and tasty, with great flavors of both banana and vanilla. In fact, since there are few spices to mask the flavor of the banana, I think that this bread actually has a better banana flavor than many similar loaves! The bread rises high and smells wonderfully of vanilla. It is good plain, but it is even better when sliced, toasted and spread with a little bit of butter.
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Bananas and rum are a great combination, evidenced by the popularity of Bananas Foster for more than a half century since its invention. There is something about banana that brings out the sweetness of rum, and something about rum that really brings out the complexity of a simple banana. You don’t need much to make the most of this pairing, so I added just a splash of rum into this bundt cake and a splash of rum into the glaze and got a delicious finished dessert.
This Banana Rum Cake is a straightforward cake that is perfect for almost any occasion. You need about three ripe bananas to make it, but as long as you have those, you probably already have everything else you need on hand. The cake is moist and sweet – thanks to all of those bananas – and has a beautiful tight, soft crumb to it. You can really taste the bananas and you definitely get a hint of the rum, but you also get a bit of buttery flavor from the butter and buttermilk in the recipe. The glaze is where most of the rum flavor comes in, as the simple frosting really allows the rum flavor to stand out.
This cake keeps very well when stored in an airtight container and will last for several days. It is a great cake to serve with after dinner coffee or drinks, but it is also excellent as a mid-afternoon snack. It goes well with rum raisin and butter pecan ice creams (as well as many other flavors, I’m sure). There isn’t enough rum in here to even give you the slightest buzz, but if you really don’t want to use rum, you could substitute in milk and make a plainer (but still tasty) variation on this recipe.
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Walnuts, pecans and chocolate chips are probably three of the most common add-ins for banana breads. I know that they’re my default choices, although I’ve been known to branch out into other add-ins from time to time, opting for peanut butter swirls and coconut instead of crunchy nuts and rich chocolate chips. This time around, I opted to add in some fresh blueberries to create a loaf of banana bread that seemed to have a lighter, more summery flavor.
This is not much more than my basic banana bread recipe with some fresh, farmers’ market blueberries mixed into it. The banana bread itself is easy to make and is fairly low in fat, so you never feel guilty about eating a slice or two for breakfast. Since it uses oil instead of butter, there is no need to wait around while your butter softens up and this loaf can mix up and be in the oven in just a couple of minutes. Fresh berries are going to give you the neatest look in this loaf because there is no frozen juice or liquid to come off them and “stain” the bread when you mix them in. That said, you can still substitute frozen berries if you want to make this loaf in the off-season.
The banana bread is moist and tender, with a good banana flavor punctuated by bursts of fruity blueberries. The banana bread batter is thick and it supports the berries very well; you won’t end up a loaf where all the berries have sunk to the bottom during baking. This will keep well for a couple of days when well-wrapped and is great for snacking, as well as for breakfast and for dessert!
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Gluten free baked goods seem to be getting more popular all the time. This means that there are more products out to help you bake gluten free things than there were, say, five or six years ago. For instance, you can now easily pick up a bag of gluten free flour, such as the Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Flour I keep in my pantry, and use it in a variety of recipes much as you would use regular all purpose flour. This is exactly what I did with this recipe, adding gluten free flour to a recipe that can easily use regular flour.
These banana pecan muffins certainly did not suffer for being gluten free. Indeed, no one I served them to had a clue that there wasn’t a speck of gluten in them! The muffins are moist, soft and very tender. Some of that tenderness comes from the lack of gluten in the flour, but they were not crumbly or mushy (as some bad GF baked goods I’ve tried have been). They had a great mixture of spices that really complemented the bananas, and of course the pecans added a great crunchiness. I usually like to used roasted and salted pecans in my baked goods for that extra sweet-savory flavor, but regular toasted pecans are just fine, too.
These muffins taste great when they’re fresh, but are so moist that they keep well for a day or two when stored in an airtight container. They’re a great alternative to a banana bread, since muffins take so little time to bake, and make a great breakfast treat with a cup of coffee in the morning if you make them the night before.
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