Recipe and Tutorial: Banana Pumpkin Bread of AWESOMESAUCE!

Wow, two banana posts in a row. I must be on some kind of banana kick. Don't worry, I have plenty of other yummy fewdz to talk about; it was just the roll of the dice this week.


In any case, earlier this month, my friend, Erynith, decided to stay at our place for a few days and "take care of our cat" while I was away visiting family....uh huh...

I think the visit had more to do with a combination of her house being renovated and our 52" flat screen HDTV with unlimited US Netflix, but no matter...heh heh...

In any case, as she's a good house guest, Erynith brought her own groceries to prepare and consume. When she left, there were two bananas left behind. As I'm not much of a fruit person, nor is the Hubster, they sat there for a few days, getting older and browner and less appetizing, as bananas do.

I finally got sick of looking at them last week, and decided to make something out of them before they needed to be binned, so I went on my Epic Search through my cookbook library, digital recipe compendium, and online for interesting ideas. I knew I wanted to bring the resulting product with me to our Scout Camp this past weekend, so the recipe I used had to a) be pleasing to a crowd consisting of teenage boys, young men, and "oldies" (i.e. Leaders), b) be sturdy enough to survive a car ride, and c) be sufficient enough to feed all of us (including three growing teenage boys with apparently hollow legs).

I finally decided on this recipe because I had a sugar pumpkin I had brought back from my visit; however, when I finally got to making the recipe, the sugar pumpkin ended up being rotten in the middle, so I had to use my emergency go-to tin of pureed pumpkin. Ah, well.

Regardless, this recipe baked up beautifully, and was really substantial!  It also was moist enough that I can confidently state it will last for several days, wrapped and kept cool (not that it had the chance to last around our Scouts!)

Banana Pumpkin Bread

Prep Time: 20 Minutes

Baking Time: 45 Minutes

Yield: 1 loaf (12 servings)

Original Source: Allrecipes.com

• 2 ripe bananas, mashed
• 2 large eggs
• 1/3 cup light vegetable oil
• 1 1/3 cups pumpkin purée
• ½ cup honey
• ½ cup golden brown sugar
• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour           
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp cardamom
• ½ tsp nutmeg
• ¼ tsp cloves
• ¼ tsp ginger
• 3/4 cup raisins or dried cranberries or diced dried apricots
• 1/4 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds) (optional)
• 1/2 cup nuts, coarsely chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 350˚F (175˚C). Butter a 9”x5” loaf pan.

 In a large bowl, stir together the mashed banana, eggs, oil, pumpkin, honey and sugar. 

Whisk together the remaining dry ingredients 

 and stir into the banana mixture until just combined. 

Fold in the raisins and/or cranberries and the chopped nuts, 

 reserving 1 tbsp of nuts to sprinkle on the top (optional). 

 

Pour batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.

Bake for 45-55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. 

Cool loaf in the pan for 10 minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe and Tutorial: Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

 

Some time ago, for whatever reason that is lost to the mists of time, I made some banana chocolate chip muffins.  I probably had some bananas that were over-ripe or something. 

I had never had much success with muffins, which is weird and annoying on two fronts, considering that a) they're one of the easiest baking recipes to make, and b) I went to Pastry School for two years. WTH. I finally figured out that my inability to make a tender muffin is probably because of my twitchy need to ensure that everything is well-mixed and combined properly...which letmetellyou is the OPPOSITE of what you want to do with muffins. Over-mixing muffins can lead to the gluten in the flour becoming activated too soon, and leaving your muffins tough, heavy, flat and with little vertical tunnels running through from bottom to top.

As has been said before, while cooking is an art, baking is a science. 

And yes, I need this on a shirt or apron STAT.

As said above, the less your muffin (or quickbread) batter is mixed, the better your product will turn out. This has to do with the entirely scientific method in how acids (in this case the bananas), liquids, (eggs and milk), gluten (flour), and leavening agent (baking powder) chemically interact with one another.

I discovered an excellent explanation of why muffins behave as they do in a scientific cookbook penned in 1937, Experimental Cookery from the Chemical and Physical Standpoint by Bell Lowe. No longer in print, this cookbook/scientific manual has been lovingly preserved on the Internet for all to enjoy, or an out of print copy may be found on Amazon if one looks hard enough.

In any case, in the section on muffins, Lowe relates the results of her experiments using several different alterations to a basic muffin recipe, then recording the data and photographing the evidence.

In a nutshell, Lowe states that a maximum of 25-30 strokes/beats should give you an optimal muffin batter. This number of strokes is barely enough to combine the flour with the liquid ingredients, but don't worry; the batter at this stage should be lumpy, and break away/separate easily from the mixing spoon when filling the muffin pan cavities.  When this state is achieved, you will have perfectly baked muffins that are craggy and rough on the top but have a shiny glaze to them, have good volume, no tunnels, and are tender (tender in pastry terms means that a baked product is soft and has a good crumb).

When we mix the batter beyond this optimum amount, its appearance starts to change; the batter becomes smoother and less lumpy, it flows more readily, and as it falls from the spoon it forms long, ribbon-like strands and tends to cling to the spoon. When baked off, over-mixed muffins change in appearance, texture, and volume; the muffin top is less rounded and may come to a sharp point or peak. The crust is smoother, browns less readily, and becomes duller in appearance with less glaze. 

This is also when tunnels start to form through the muffin's centre. Not to be confused with the medium to large holes often found in muffins and cakes, caused by addition of air in mixing, these tunnels are long and narrow. The baked off muffins are less tender, the muffin's grain is finer, the cell walls thinner, and the finished muffin is more compact. 

With extremely overlong mixing, and particularly when using baking powder, the muffin's texture may become very dense with low volume; your muffins will have fewer tunnels at this stage due to their density, and the tops will be virtually flat and very smooth in appearance.

 

Wow, a science lesson, whodathunkit!!

Looking back at photos of these muffins of which I was so proud (first ones that ever worked out for me, srly!), I can tell that I had over-mixed them just the tiniest bit, probably to stage 2 according to Lowe (~60 strokes). They are a little too smooth on the tops, and some of them are just starting to peak.  But hey, I forgive me. I've learned a LOT about muffin structure since I made these, and it's my expectation hope that my next batch of muffins, be they this recipe or another, will be PERFECTION.

The best of luck to you in your Quest for the Perfect Muffin! 

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Source: Epicurious.com

Yield: 1 dozen standard muffins

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 large)
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 1/4 cup milk
• 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line twelve 1/3-cup muffin cups with paper or foil cupcake liners. 
2. Whisk flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. 
3. Combine mashed bananas, egg, melted butter and milk in medium bowl until well combined. 
4. Stir banana mixture into dry ingredients just until barely mixed together (DO NOT OVER-MIX). Stir in chocolate chips.
5. Divide batter among prepared muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Bake muffins until tops are pale golden and tester inserted into center comes out with some melted chocolate attached but no crumbs, about 32 minutes. 
6. Transfer muffins to rack; cool.
   
   
   

Recipe and Tutorial: Banana Cake with Penuche Frosting

This cake is super-delicious and so incredibly moist! I don't usually like banana-flavoured anything, but this cake is virtually the sole exception, probably because it uses actual bananas and not that horrific artificial banana flavouring. *bleaugh* 

That chemical banana garbage should be thrown into the sea, but that would be cruel to marine life.

When I was whining working my way through business school, *coughcough* years ago, my stress level was so high, the best psychic relief I found was to cook and bake for hours in my shared kitchen (instead of doing my classwork...ahem). 

Bwaa haa haa...

My roommate and my boyfriend of the time both benefited enormously from the cornucopia of baked goods that I produced; in fact, so much so that their waistlines increased alarmingly over a short period of time. I'm guessing my stress level got a little out of hand at one point when my roommate had to *beg* me to stop baking, as he lacked the willpower to stay away from my delicious treats! 

I'm guessing that using them both as recipe guinea pigs when I was trying something out for the first time contributed to their obesity concerns, especially since my only request for payment was in feedback.  At least I have some great notations in my cookbooks for what worked and what didn't, and I still use them to this day.

Back then, I was a newbie baker and being a full-time student meant that I didn't have much money; I needed simple and inexpensive yet delicious recipes. I hated using box mixes for anything I could make from scratch (and I still do), so natural ingredients were an absolute imperative. Perusing my small but growing collection of cookbooks, I ended up leaning quite heavily on the works of Edna Staebler, a Kitchener/Waterloo food economist and travel writer. Ms. Staebler wrote a series of recipe books based primarily on the food-ways of her family and her local Mennonite friends and neighbours; her writing style was so folksy and warm, her cookbooks were more like novels that just happened to have lots of recipes in them. Needless to say, I was quite captivated!

This banana cake recipe is simple, yet not your usual same-old, same-old. I tend to make it without the nuts, but it's delicious either way.  It can also be made vegan/dairy free by substituting butter for vegan block margarine, and the buttermilk can be subbed with coconut, almond, or rice milk. The penuche (brown sugar) frosting (recipe below) cannot be made vegan, sadly, but it's so delicious that if you can consume dairy I'd totally recommend it; in fact, cook it for a tad longer, and you will make brown sugar fudge! (omgsoyummy...)


While this cake is delicious on its own as a snackin' cake, if you want it to be fancier for company or a family event, make this cake in two 8" rounds, split and fill the layers with sliced fresh bananas and sweetened whipped cream, and top with penuche frosting poured over the top and drizzled over the sides; decorate with whole walnuts or pecans as desired.

Banana Cake

Adapted from Food that Really Schmecks, by Edna Staebler 
Yield: 1 12"x9" layer, or two 8" rounds, or 24 standard cupcakes 

Note: all ingredients are presumed to be room temperature

• ½ cup unsalted butter
• 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 ¼ cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ¾ tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• ¼ cup buttermilk*
• 1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 large)
• ½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, then grease and flour the bottom and sides of a 12"x9"x2" pan.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy; thoroughly beat in the eggs.   
3. Sift together the dry ingredients and stir them in alternately with the milk, mashed bananas and nuts (if using).  
4. Pour into prepared baking pan.  Bake until centre of cake tests done, approx. 40 to 45 minutes (if making 2-8" round layers, bake for 20-25 minutes; cupcakes take approx 15-18 minutes to bake). Rotate pans at least once during baking.
5. Remove from oven and let cool in pan for 15 minutes; turn out onto rack and cool completely before cutting into squares.

Penuche Frosting

• 3 cups brown sugar
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup butter
• ½ tsp salt

Stir all ingredients over low heat, and then bring rapidly to a full boil, stirring constantly.  Boil to 220 degreesF, or exactly 1 minute from full boil.  Remove from heat, and beat until lukewarm, no longer glossy, and of the right consistency to spread[2].

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[1] Instead of buttermilk, you can use the same quantity of soured milk or slightly thinned yogurt (vanilla, peach, or any flavour that goes well with bananas)

[2] If the icing is not thick enough, you can boil it again, adding 2 tbsp of cornstarch or flour to thicken.