Banana Bread Again
Feb. 13th, 2021 09:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerI made banana bread again this week. I know, it seems like just 2 days ago I made banana bread for the first time in a long time; but that was just me catching up on my blog backlog from 5 weeks earlier. Two weeks ago I decided I wanted to do it again. So I bought a few bananas at the store on my one of usual grocery shopping trips and left them on the counter for a week-plus to let them start to spoil.
Banana bread is, after all, best made with extremely ripe, really over-ripe bananas. This is partly because (a) their taste and aroma become more pungent and combine better with the other ingredients in baking, and (b) the recipe is a good way for not-affluent families to use up bananas that would otherwise go to waste because they're starting to rot and no one wants to eat them anymore. The strong taste and flavor go well in the baking.
When I peeled the bananas while making batter I was surprised by what I found. Over-ripe bananas are mushy inside, with parts of the fruit flesh turning from cream color to pale brown. They taste tart and overly... banana-y. But while these bananas looked overripe on the outside, they were just normal ripe on the inside. The flesh was still firm and light colored. I ate a piece, and it tasted like a normal, just-ripe-enough-to-eat banana.
The same thing had happened with the bananas I'd used a month earlier. On the outside they looked barely ripe when I bought them, and a week to 10 days later they looked over-ripe. But inside they were a lot younger.
It's been known for years that stores and distributors chemically treat produce to make it look good for sale. It seems what's happening with bananas nowadays is they're hitting stores while they're actually well under-ripe, likely so they have longer shelf life before they actually spoil. Then they're treated with chemicals to make them look older.
Last time I wrote about leaving out the nuts the recipe calls for and sometimes subbing in chocolate chips. This time, at Hawk's suggestion, I used butterscotch chips.
![Banana Bread [Feb 2021]](https://canyonwalker.dreamwidth.org/file/34163.jpg "Banana Bread [Feb 2021]")
Also this time I decided to make the bread in a normal loaf pan. Last time's experiment with mini-Bundt pans was fine; the result was perfectly tasty. But the mini loaves were baked all the way through; an unavoidable consequence of using such small pans. I've always enjoyed the not-quite-done-in-the-center texture achievable when making a full loaf, so that's what I strove for this time.
Another little change I made was subbing fresh orange juice— as in, I squeezed it from an orange, not I bought a factory juice carton labeled "Freshly Squeezed!" with sugar and various chemical enhancers added— for the small wedge of lemon the recipe calls for.
The loaf with butterscotch chips mixed in was delicious. The butterscotch combined well with the banana and dashes of various spices to create a sweet, additional dimension of flavor. The ounce or two of OJ I used worked great, too. I could taste the orange as a minor, background flavor. It paired well with the butterscotch.
How delicious was it? Even with just two us in the house, it lasted only a bit over 48 hours. 😋
Banana bread is, after all, best made with extremely ripe, really over-ripe bananas. This is partly because (a) their taste and aroma become more pungent and combine better with the other ingredients in baking, and (b) the recipe is a good way for not-affluent families to use up bananas that would otherwise go to waste because they're starting to rot and no one wants to eat them anymore. The strong taste and flavor go well in the baking.
WTF, Bananas Aren't Really Ripe Anymore?
I picked the ripest bananas I could find at the store: those that were actually yellow, not green, and had spots of brown forming on their skins. Stores don't sell heavily ripe bananas anymore, at least not like I remember seeing when I was younger. So I bought the least un-ripe bananas I could find and set them on the kitchen counter for more than a week. The skins started browning, and they began to smell. Time to make banana bread!When I peeled the bananas while making batter I was surprised by what I found. Over-ripe bananas are mushy inside, with parts of the fruit flesh turning from cream color to pale brown. They taste tart and overly... banana-y. But while these bananas looked overripe on the outside, they were just normal ripe on the inside. The flesh was still firm and light colored. I ate a piece, and it tasted like a normal, just-ripe-enough-to-eat banana.
The same thing had happened with the bananas I'd used a month earlier. On the outside they looked barely ripe when I bought them, and a week to 10 days later they looked over-ripe. But inside they were a lot younger.
It's been known for years that stores and distributors chemically treat produce to make it look good for sale. It seems what's happening with bananas nowadays is they're hitting stores while they're actually well under-ripe, likely so they have longer shelf life before they actually spoil. Then they're treated with chemicals to make them look older.
A Versatile Recipe
Fake over-ripe bananas or not, I was making banana bread that night. When the ingredients are measured out and the bananas are peeled it's too late to turn back. Fortunately it's a very flexible recipe. It adapts well to changes. Not-overripe bananas just means milder flavor.Last time I wrote about leaving out the nuts the recipe calls for and sometimes subbing in chocolate chips. This time, at Hawk's suggestion, I used butterscotch chips.
Also this time I decided to make the bread in a normal loaf pan. Last time's experiment with mini-Bundt pans was fine; the result was perfectly tasty. But the mini loaves were baked all the way through; an unavoidable consequence of using such small pans. I've always enjoyed the not-quite-done-in-the-center texture achievable when making a full loaf, so that's what I strove for this time.
Another little change I made was subbing fresh orange juice— as in, I squeezed it from an orange, not I bought a factory juice carton labeled "Freshly Squeezed!" with sugar and various chemical enhancers added— for the small wedge of lemon the recipe calls for.
The loaf with butterscotch chips mixed in was delicious. The butterscotch combined well with the banana and dashes of various spices to create a sweet, additional dimension of flavor. The ounce or two of OJ I used worked great, too. I could taste the orange as a minor, background flavor. It paired well with the butterscotch.
How delicious was it? Even with just two us in the house, it lasted only a bit over 48 hours. 😋
no subject
Date: 2021-02-13 06:30 pm (UTC)I have so many bananas in my freezer waiting for me to make banana bread.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-21 05:52 pm (UTC)Notwithstanding, your experiments sound really tasty!