Bananas are a perfect metaphor for my approach to life. I buy a bunch to be “healthy” — they’re meant for smoothies and yogurt bowls and fruit salads — but inevitably they turn black and spotty on the counter, becoming perfect for banana bread which, as we all know, is really cake. I aspire to eat like Antoni from Queer Eye and wind up eating like Marie Antoinette.
We’re moving next week (!) so it’s more than just bananas that I need to use up on my counter. True: we’re only moving two avenues over, so it would be silly to throw out any food. But 1/4-full bags of almond slivers? And 1/2-empty bags of coconut chips? And white chocolate chips from so long ago I can’t even remember why I bought them? Those need to be used up or thrown away.
But just because you’re using things up doesn’t mean that you just throw them into the batter and hope for the best. Toasting almonds and coconut brings out their essential oils and adds a nice toasty crunch to the proceedings. And you have to preheat the oven to 350 anyway, so what’s the big deal throwing in a tray to toast while you make the rest? (The only challenging part is not forgetting that it’s in there. Nothing worse than setting off the smoke detector a week before you move out!)
Riffing on a recipe from The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook (pretty much my go-to baking book at this point), I went a little hog wild with what I threw in: raisins, white chocolate chips, the toasted almond slivers and coconut, cinnamon and flour and brown sugar. Is there such a thing as overcrowding a banana bread? Only one way to find out.
Here comes the wet stuff. Not only melted butter and eggs but also 1/4 cup of sour cream (I used whole milk Greek yogurt instead but it was Cabot and plenty thick). That little bit of sourness adds both richness and heft as it interacts with the baking soda. No dry banana breads here!
As for mixing it all together, you know the cardinal rule: don’t overmix! You don’t want a tough banana bread. Just use a rubber spatula to fold things in nicely until you don’t see a speck of flour.
When it comes time to bake the banana bread, I really like to use a parchment sling. They’re not hard to make: just tear off a large sheet of parchment paper, hold it against the long side of the pan, and cut it so the width of the parchment fits in neatly. Then use the leftover piece to line the other side. (I like to spray with Pam both before and after.)
This bakes for 45 minutes and, as you can see, despite all of those fillings it wasn’t weighed down too much. It still had a nice shape.
And the cool thing with a parchment sling is that once it cools a little you just lift it out and let it finish cooling on a wire rack.
Who knew that cleaning out your pantry could be so delicious? Now I just have 1/4-full bags of chia seeds, tapioca flour, and corn starch to use up. Who’s ready for a chia-tapioca-starchy brisket?
3-Banana Bread with Toasted Coconut and White Chocolate
Ingredients
Method
- Preheat the oven to 350. Spray a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with vegetable spray, line with parchment, and spray again.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, light brown sugar, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Chop up the coconut slivers and almonds a little and stir them in with the raisins and white chocolate chips
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the mashed bananas, sour cream, eggs, butter, and vanilla. Gently fold the banana mixture into the flour mixture until just combined.
- Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan, spreading it evenly with a spatula. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, until the loaf is golden brown and a cake tester inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool the bread in the loaf pan for 5 to 10 minutes, then lift on to a wire rack to cool completely.
