Showing posts sorted by date for query Banana Bread. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query Banana Bread. Sort by relevance Show all posts
There is something really comforting about a good banana bread. I have baked many through the years and have my favourites. Family Favourite Banana Bread and Rich Banana Bread are two of my absolute favourites.
The family favourite recipe is one I baked for my family for many years. It is moist and delicious. The rich banana bread recipe is the banana bread I used to bake for the Mr when I worked at the manor down south. He had to have a loaf of it baked for him every week! It is also moist and delicious.
Big Banana breads just are not practical in this house these days. I know I could freeze them but for me something is lost in the flavour when something is frozen. Maybe it is just in my head, I don't know for sure.
This recipe for Banana Chocolate Chip Bread for Two solves that problem. It makes one small Banana Bread, 5 1/2 by 3 inches in size. It is perfectly sized for the smaller family.
Alternately you could probably bake this Banana Bread in two medium to large muffin cups. I am not quite sure how long they would take as banana bread is a bit denser than muffins.
I am thinking you should check them at 20 to 25 minutes however. This would be about right in my opinion.
This loaf may be small in stature, but it is big on flavour. It lacks nothing in the least of its much larger counterpart!
It is rich, moist, and delicious. There is only a tiny bit of fat in the form of 1 TBS of unsalted butter, melted. This is great because you end up with a bread that is not oily or greasy in the least. Too many banana breads can end up this way. Blech!
It uses one small banana, about 1/4 cup of mashed banana. This means that there is plenty of banana flavour in this loaf.
The abundance of natural sugars in bananas are the secret to a moist and delicious Banana Bread. Make sure your bananas are nice and ripe before you use them in a banana bread.
Ideally they should be starting to soften. The skin should be well spotted with brown flecks of colour. The more brown flecks the better!
I have used bananas to make banana bread that most people would throw away. I am talking just about black in colour skin-wise. They make the best banana breads.
They mash beautifully and are the sweetest! Seriously! I am a person who hates chunks of banana in my banana bread.
I want a smooth texture without lumps of banana. I do like toasted nuts in it, but no banana lumps! I am funny that way.
If you use yellow not-so-ripe bananas they just won't work right. They just don't have the sweetness and flavour of their over-ripe counterparts!
They can even remain quite starchy after baking! This is a big No No! There are a lot of theories out there about how to ripen bananas.
One of the best ways it to place them into a paper bag and shut it up, leaving them in there for a few days. This is the most effective method.
It does the job best. The bag traps the ethyene gas produced by ripening fruit. This in turn helps to speed up the process from the normal time of just leaving them on the counter-top. You will find you only need a day or two!
I like toasted walnuts in my banana bread. Banana and walnuts just are perfect partners. You could also use pecans. The Mr down south liked toasted pecans over walnuts.
I like both, but prefer the walnuts. I get that from my dad. He is nuts about walnuts as well! And of course as I tell you frequently, toasting your nuts just makes them nuttier!
Lately I have been reading a lot about which nuts we should be eating and which ones we should be eating sparingly, if not avoiding! There are two which you should really eat sparingly and you are probably going to be upset when you find out what they are!
Cashews and Peanuts. They are the nuts which are the higest in lectins and lectins are not very good for us. Our bodies have a hard time breaking them down and they can cause a lot of tummy distress.
I have diverticulitis and gastritis and so gut health is really important to me. I've been doing a lot of research into it lately and lectins are a likely culprit.
The best nuts are walnuts, pistachios, pecans and macadamia nuts. Not a problem, I love all of those. Almonds are also good.
I guess that means I will have to cut back on my peanut butter and toast supper. Most nights that is what I have for my supper. A slice of toast spread with peanut butter.
Not a good thing in the long run I guess. Bad news for me who always has said that if I was marooned on a desert island I would want a jar of peanut butter and potatoes with me. Ho hum . . .
In any case I do love walnuts and they are wonderful in this moist and delicious loaf! They add a beautiful hint of toasted nutty crunchiness!
You can leave the chocolate out if you wish. I use Green & Blacks dark milk chocolate, but you can use chocolate chips, or even dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate.
The choice is yours completely!
Yield: Serves 2
Banana Chocolate Chip Bread for Two
This is a simple, moist and tender banana loaf that tastes like bananas. It is studded with toasted walnuts and good quality chopped milk chocolate. You will need a 5 1/2 by 3 inch loaf tin for this delight. You could also bake it in two muffin cups.
prep time: 10 Mincook time: 40 Mininactive time: 1 Hourtotal time: 1 H & 50 M
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (70g) all purpose/plain flour
- 1/4 cup (30g) toasted and chopped walnuts
- 2 TBS good quality dark milk chocolate, grated or cut into chunks (I use Green & Black's)
- 1/4 cup (50g) sugar
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1 small ripe banana, peeled and mashed really well (about 1/4 cup)
- 1 large free range egg, at room temperature
- 1 TBS unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- 1 TBS plain yogurt
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180*C.350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter a 5 1/2 by 3 inch loaf tin and line with baking paper.
- Whisk the flour, chocolate, walnuts, sugar, soda and salt together in a medium bowl.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the melted and cooled butter, bananas, egg, yogurt and vanilla.
- Gently fold the wet ingredients into the dry just to combine. Do not overmix. Spoon into the prepared pan, smoothing the top.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes until the loaf is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.
- Let cool in the pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes before lifting out from the pan to cool completely. Leave to cool for one hour before slicing to serve.
I really hope that you will want to bake this Banana bread if you are in a small family, and if you are not, maybe you will enjoy one of the larger loaves that I have linked up to here. Also, if I was to small size another kind of quick bread, what would be your choice of smaller sized recipes you might like to see? I aim to please!
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
Usually at the weekend I like to bake us something that we can enjoy for breakfast or with a hot drink. I do bake sweet things too.
I am not sure why I always bake at the weekend. I suppose it is a habit that started when I was working full time. I did not really have much time during the week to bake us anything special. We were lucky I managed to get dinner done!
The recipe I am sharing with you today for Sugar-Free Banana Nut Muffins has been adapted from a cookbook of mine entitled Bread for Breakfast by Beth Hensperger.
It is filled with lots of baked Breakfast options, including muffins, loaves (both sweet and savoury, quick and yeasted), Scones, Biscuits, cornbreads, etc.
There are also a sections on coffee cakes and holiday bakes, pancakes and waffles, as well as butters, jams and fruit and cheese spreads.
Its not an overly large book, but it is filled with quite a few goodies. Old fashioned as well as the new. Its one of my favourite breakfast baking books.
I was intrigued by this Banana Muffin recipe because it was sugar free. These days we have all been brainwashed by popular coffee spots and warehouse stores into think that a muffin is supposed to a small cake. Similar to a cupcake but without frosting!
As a consequence, our tastebuds have come to expect that every muffin we eat should be stogged full of sugar in one form or another. Ultra sweet, containing candy like chocolate chips and the like.
Don't get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a chocolate chip muffin. I adore them myself. But a muffin should be a muffin and not a little cake. Know what I mean.
This muffin recipe boasts no sugar at all. Nada. Zip. Zero sugar. Instead it relies upon the sweetness of the fruit to bring sweet into the mix. In this case bananas.
Bananas are quite sweet fruit and the longer you allow them to ripen the sweeter they get. The best bananas for baking are ones which are heavily speckled with brown, maybe even to the point where you think they are past it.
But they are not past it. They are perfect and sweet and ready to be baked into muffins and loaves, cookies, cakes, etc.
These are lovely and moist. There is buttermilk in the batter. I love bakes with buttermilk. Buttermilk adds a special lightness and tenderness to bakes such as this.
It is an acid as well, so it helps to create a nice lift. You always need to add bicarbonate of soda to a bake using something acidic like buttermilk, yogurt, sour cream, etc.
When baking soda is combined with the lactic acids of buttermilk, the acid neutralizes the metallic taste of sodium carbonate, and the batter will bubble and expand.
This is why when you are baking something with buttermilk and soda in it you need to get your bake into the oven as quickly as possible. This is to help take advantage of that chemical reaction.
The heat of the oven will immediately increase the effects of that action giving you a nice tall and light bake. If you wait too long to put your bakes into the oven you will risk losing that effect, and in fact you will decrease the action of the buttermilk and the soda as well.
So speed is the key factor here. Make sure you have your pan greased and everything ready to go as soon as you mix the wet and dry ingredients together!
So, no sugar. These muffins have no sugar whatsoever. I didn't mind. The end result was not sweet at all actually. It was just right. Just what I would expect a true muffin to taste like.
If you want sweet, you will have to add a bit of sugar into the mix. I wouldn't think you would need a lot actually, maybe only 1 or 2 TBS of either caster sugar or soft light brown sugar.
We enjoyed them just as they were, served warm with some butter for spreading on top. Look at the texture of these beauties. I call that perfection.
The recipe only makes 9 muffins. That's another thing I liked about the recipe. Nine muffins is a perfectly reasonable amount. They also freeze really well according to the recipe. Up to three months in an airtight container.
Baking things like this at the weekend means I also get to use my roll cover. My good friend Monique sent this sweet embroidered roll cover to me last year, or possibly even the year before, for my Birthday.
Every time I use it I cannot help but think of her, and her many kindnesses to me through the years. Meeting good and kind people is one of the blessings you gain from being a member of the blogging community.
Like is attracted to like. These sweet friendships are one of the things I love most about blogging. That sense of community. Oh sure there is the odd nasty person, or troll as they are called, but the good ones far outweigh them.
There are some pecans in these muffins. Chopped pecans. I always like to toast my nuts before baking with them. It doesn't take much of an effort. It only takes a few minutes on a dry baking sheet in a hot oven.
They are done when they start to smell all nice and nutty. Do watch them however, as they can go from toasty to burnt in milliseconds. Five to eight minutes at 200*C/400*F will do the trick.
You could add chocolate chips. Just saying. I like semi-sweet chocolate chips or milk chocolate chips. Both are quite nice in banana muffins. You could even add some berries. Blueberries would be nice.
If you rely on the sweetness of your muffin to come from the sweetness of the banana you really don't have to feel guilty about spreading them with butter while hot, and maybe even drizzling them with a bit of honey if you can tolerate honey.
As a diabetic, honey sends my sugar levels sky-rocketing. Even just a little bit on the tip of my tongue. Its a shame really because I have always loved honey.
Anyways, if you are looking for a nice, moist and not overly sweet muffin, with plenty of toasty nut crunch, then you have come to the right place! These fit the bill on all counts!
Sugar-Free Banana Nut Muffins
Yield: Makes 9 Muffins
prep time: 10 Mincook time: 25 Mininactive time: 5 Mintotal time: 40 Min
This is an interesting muffin adapted from a cookery book by Beth Henshberger entitled Bread for Breakfast. This is a lovely moist muffin that truly is not too sweet, relying only on the sweetness of the banana. I think this is what muffins were originally intended to be. Breads and not Cake.
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups (210g) plain flour
- 1/2 cup (70g)whole wheat flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 cup (60g) chopped toasted pecan nuts
- 1 cup (240ml) buttermilk
- 2 large free range eggs
- 120ml (1/2 cup) canola oil
- 2 medium sized ripe bananas
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 190*C/375*F/ gas mark 5. Butter a muffin tin really well, or spray with non-stick cooking spray.
- Sift together the flour, baking powder, soda and cinnamon. Stir in the salt. Stir in the toasted pecans.
- Beat the oil, eggs, buttermilk and vanilla together with a wire wisk to combine well. Stir in the mashed banana. Pour this mixture into the dry ingrdients and fold everything together with a plastic spatula just to combine.
- Immediately spoon into the prepared muffin tin, filling each hole to the rim.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes. The muffins should be well risen and a toothpick inserted in the centre of one should come out clean.
- Let cool in the pan for about 5 minutes before tipping out onto a wire rack to cool.
notes:
Do not allow these to overbake. I would definitely check them at 20 minutes. If you must you can add 2 TBS of brown sugar to the wet ingredients to add a bit more sweetness. Any leftovers can be stored in an air tight container, or frozen for up to 3 months.
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com
Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
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Its that time of year again. If you are a vegetable gardener you will know exactly what I mean. Its zucchini glut season! That time of year when you have zucchini, or courgettes are they are known here in the UK, coming out your ears!
That time of the year when you think if you see just one more zucchini you are going to scream, and then . . . you remember things like this delicious Pineapple Zucchini Loaf and all of a sudden everything is alright in your world again.
I think zucchini has to be one of the most prolific of garden vegetables. You think you have picked it all and then it surprises you with a gargantuan one, the size of a small dog that's been hiding underneat all of the leaf cover.
You find yourself wondering how on earth you could have missed such a thing, but there it is. Its huge and you did actually miss finding it sooner.
I'm not sure about you, but personally I like to pick my zucchini and use it when it is about the size of a large banana. Any larger than that and I find it is pretty tasteless. It does work very well however in bakes such as this delicious loaf.
I usually cut it in half, discard all of the seeds and then grate the rest. It actually freezes very well. You can pack it into zip lock freezer baggies, in 2 cup measures, ready to use all the winter through.
Zucchini makes a superior quick bread. It always comes out moist and flecked with green. This particular recipe which contains crushed pineapple is a particular favourite of mine.
Its light and takes well to the warm baking spices and toasted nuts. I have used pecans today, but walnuts also work very well. I always toast my nuts for baking. Toasting makes them taste even nuttier!
Today I used smaller zucchini, about the size of a large banana. Their cylindrical shape of this summer vegetable makes it very easy to hold and to grate.
I use the large holes on my box grater. If you use anything smaller, it will turn to mush. I also prefer the texture of hand grated over machine grated.
Zucchini has a very high water content, so take note. No liquid is needed in this recipe, other than the oil. I have not left anything out. There is no milk or yogurt or any other liquid.
Just the zucchini and the crushed pineapple. I do drain the pineapple well, but I leave the zucchini as is. There is no need to squeeze the liquid out of it. Don't you just love those bright green flecks? I do. Its almost Christmas-like!
I baked this in two metal loaf tins, one was slightly larger than the other, but both were basically 9 by 5 inches in size. You can use pyrex loaf pans if you want, but if you do, you will want to reduce the oven temperature to 160*C/325*F/ gas mark 3.
I just use my shiny silver loaf tins. Aluminium foil ones are also nice. You know, the disposable ones? You can use them over and over a few times, simply placing them in the dishwasher on the top rack to clean, before you need to get rid of them.
Baking them in aluminium foil also makes them very handy for gifting. Our next door neighbour has been so kind to us throughout this Pandemic. Always picking us up bread and milk without us even having to ask.
She was very pleased to be gifted with one of these loaves. Zucchini Loaf is something new to the British. Its not something they ever think to do with this vegetable.
Stuffed marrow is not something I have ever taken a liking to, although I do like stuffed zucchini. I like mine stuffed with vegetables, cheese and crumbs however, not meat.
You can also freeze this easy loaf. Just make sure you wrap it up really well in some cling film. I tend to double wrap it and then wrap it again in some aluminium foil. Make sure you add a label so that you know what it is.
Yes, I am one of those people who freezes things and then can't figure out what the heck it is when I go to thaw it out. I have been surprised many times over. Now I label things. You should too. You can keep it frozen for about 3 months or a bit longer.
Pineapple and Zucchini Loaf is one of those quick breads that begs to be eaten, still warm from the oven with a hot cuppa of whatever hot drink you enjoy and spread with cold butter.
Oh it is so good with that cold butter melting down into it. Spicy, sweet, buttery and nutty. What more could a person ask for???
Pineapple & Zucchini Loaf
Yield: Makes 2 (9 X 5-inch) Loaves
prep time: 15 Mcook time: 1 hourtotal time: 1 H & 15 M
This is a superior Quick Bread. Its incredibly moist and delicious and flecked with green and bits of pineapple. Make one loaf to keep and one to give away or freeze.
Ingredients:
- 3 cups all purpose flour (420g plain)
- 1 cup toasted chopped pecans (120g)
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground allspice
- 1 tsp salt
- 3 large free range eggs
- 3/4 cup vegetable oil (180ml)
- 1 cup firmly packed soft light brown sugar (200g)
- 1 cup granulated sugar (190g)
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 2 1/2 cups grated zucchini (430g, about 2 medium courgettes)
- 1 (8 1/2 oz) can of drained crushed pineapple (240g)
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter two 9 by 5 inch loaf tins and line with paper, leaving an overhang to help easily lift it out.
- Whisk together the eggs, both sugars, oil and vanilla until thick and fuffy using an electric mixer. Fold in the grated zucchini and well drained pineapple
- Sift together the flour, soda, baking powder, cinnamon and allspice. Stir in the salt.
- Fold into the wet mixture, along with the toasted pecans, making three additions. You should have a moistened batter which is evenly combined with no patches of dry flour.
- Divide the batter equally amongst the two baking tins.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 55 to 60 minutes until golden brown and the edges have started to pull away slightly from the tins. A toothpick inserted in the centre should also come out clean.
- Let rest in the pan for 5 minutes before lifting out to a wire rack to cool, right sides up. Serve in thick slices or store at room temperature, wrapped tightly for up to three days.
- This also freezes well, wrapped tightly for up to three months.
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: theenglishkitchen@mail.com
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We are huge muffin lovers in this house. I usually try to bake a batch every weekend so that we have them to enjoy for a few days. Some weeks I small batch, not wanting to waste any. This weekend finding ourselves in possession of quite a few over-ripe bananas I decided to bake a full batch of Banana muffins, knowing that I can simply free what we will not eat within a couple of days to enjoy somewhere down the road.
Normally this wouldn't happen. But Todd went for a walk the other day and bought some bananas at a shop, not realising of course that I had bananas on my grocery order for delivery. Not a problem really as I always use them up.
Sometimes I will bake Banana Bread and I have some really great recipes for a variety of Banana Breads on here. My absolute favourite one is this Sour Cream Banana Loaf. This is the one I always bake for the Mr when I cooked at Brenchley Manor.
I had to make sure that there was always one of those in the larder. He loved it toasted in the toaster oven and spread with cold butter for breakfast. I do love Banana Bread, but in all truth I don't always want to wait the hour or so that it takes to bake.
If you are looking for instant gratification, Banana Muffins are the way to go. They mix together rather quickly and bake lickety split..
You can usually be enjoying one of them within a half an hour, start to finish, and this is my favourite recipe for them.
It is my favourite recipe for a number of reasons. One with the ease at which I can throw them together and two because they always bake up moist and delicious, never dry and always beautifully flavoured.
If you are a purist, you can of course leave out the chocolate chips and walnuts, but we love them just as they are! You can of course use pecans if you would rather. We like the walnuts.
I always toast my nuts before using them when baking. It doesn't take much effort. Just a few minutes on a baking tray in a hot oven does the trick. Toasting your nuts just helps them to taste nuttier!
It enhances the nuttiness as it were . . . and chocolate chips. Chocolate and banana are a beautiful conbination. Think chocolate dipped frozen bananas here. The two flavours are quite symbiotic.
I was thinking as well, if you love peanut butter and banana sandwiches, you might like to use peanut butter chips in these instead of chocolate? What say you eh?
In any case I think these are pretty perfect just as they are. Soft, buttery, lightly spiced and moist.
Quick to make, quick to bake, incredibly moreish when it comes to enjoying them. I could easily eat two of these in one sitting, but I restrain myself.
If you are looking for the perfect Banana Muffin, you can't go too far wrong by using this recipe. I think quite possibly, its the absolute best.
Banana Muffins
Yield: 12 muffins
These are the perfect banana muffins. Moist, lightly spiced and filled with toasted nuts and chocolate chips (or not if that's what you prefer.)
Ingredients:
- 210 grams plain flour (1 1/2 cups)
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 3 large over-ripe bananas (about 1 1/2 cups)
- 86g melted butter (6 TBS)
- 145g soft light brown sugar (2/3 cup)
- 1 large free range egg, lightly beaten
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 TBS whole milk
- 60g chopped toasted walnut meats (1/2 cup)
- 90g semi sweet chocolate chips (1/2 cup)
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 220*C/425*F/ gas mark 7. Line a 12 cup muffin tin with paper liners.
- Whisk together the flour, soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Stir in the chocolate chips and nuts.
- Using an electric whisk beat the bananas in a bowl until mashed thoroughly. Whisk in the sugar, egg, vanilla, melted butter and milk, combining well together. Add the dry ingredients all at once and stir together just to combine. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin just to below the top of the paper liner.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 5 minutes then immediately lower the oven temperature to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4 without opening the oven door. Bake for a further 15 minutes until well risen, golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the centre of a muffin comes out clean.
- Allow to cool for five minutes, prior to carefully lifting out to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Store any leftovers in an airtight container for up to two days. These will also freeze well, properly wrapped, for up to three months. Thaw overnight prior to eating.
So what is it that makes a muffin the perfect muffin for you? What flavours do you enjoy? Next to Banana I love Bran. I need to find a way to combine the two don't you think?
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