Banana Bread
Description
For many of the recipes on our website, we grow all the fruits and vegetables. For this recipe, we grow the bananas at our home. Over several attempts, we have refined this recipe to produce the best banana bread we have tried, so that we can share it with you.
At a Glance
Equipment
We like to use a large mixer on a stand to produce this wonderful Banana Bread.
Ingredients
For two loaves of 5” x 9” Banana Bread:
3-½ cups of Bananas, mashed, which is about 20 Bananas in the size that we grow. Most bananas in the grocery store are larger; therefore, it is important to measure the 3-½ cups of mashed bananas.
3 cups of All-Purpose Flour
1-¼ cups of Almond Flour
1-¼ cups of raw, whole Almonds, ground down,
2-½ teaspoons of Baking Soda
1 teaspoon of Salt
2 Eggs, at room temperature
1 cup of Sour Cream
¾ cups (1 ½ sticks) of Butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon of Almond Extract
1-½ cups of Sugar, granulated
For the Baking Pans:
¼ cup of Sugar, granulated
2 teaspoons of Cinnamon
Baking Spray for coating the Baking Pans
Directions
To Prepare the Baking Pans:
Mix the sugar and the cinnamon together. Spray the baking pans with the baking spray, and when they are coated with the baking spray, sprinkle the sugar / cinnamon mixture over the insides (bottom and sides) of the baking pans.
To Prepare the Banana Bread:
Start with very ripe bananas, but if the bananas are not very ripe, then proceed to cook them. The oven does a good job of developing the sweet flavor of very ripe banana. Put unpeeled bananas on a foil-lined baking sheet. Bake them in a preheated 300 F oven for 15-20 minutes. Flip them halfway through the cooking process until the banana skins turn completely black all over. Let them cool, then scoop the banana pulp from the peel and put them in a food processor.
Do a rough chop on the raw almonds. Preheat the oven now to 350 F. Put the almonds on a baking sheet and put them into the oven for 10 minutes. The point of this is to bring out the flavor of the almonds. After 10 minutes, take the almonds out of the oven, and allow them to cool. Once cooled, place the almonds into the food processor and grind them down to a fine grind, and set aside.
Heat the oven to 350 F. In a metal bowl, whisk together to integrate fully the all-purpose flour, the almond flour, the ground almonds, the salt, and the baking soda.
In a separate small bowl, whisk the eggs as well as the almond extract together, and set aside. In a mixing bowl in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Once the egg and sugar are light and fluffy, gradually add the egg and almond extract. Add the sour cream to the mixing bowl and mix it in until it is fully incorporated. Add the bananas to the mixing bowl and mix at a low speed until the bananas are fully integrated; as the bananas are mixed in, they may look a little “curdled”, which is fine. Once the banana mash is mixed in thoroughly, remove the bowl from the mixer. Slowly fold in the flour and nut mixture. Pour half of the mixture into each of the two, pre-prepared baking pans. Smooth the top of the mixture in the baking pans.
Place the baking pans with the batter in the oven to bake for 60-75 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out of the banana bread cleanly and the bread is pulling away from the sides of the baking pan. Remove the banana bread from the oven and allow the bread to cool. When the bread is cooled, turn the bread out on to a baking rack to cool further. When it is fully cooled, wrap the bread in Saran Wrap to store it.
Serving Suggestion:
We like to slice and toast the banana bread lightly in a toaster oven before we serve it, so that it is warm each time. It is important that it is not toasted in a normal toaster, because it will fall apart in a standard toaster. The banana bread can store in the refrigerator for up to a week, or it can be frozen for future use.
Wine Pairings
Related Recipes
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Other Side DishesGrapefruit and Plum Fruit Salad