Get Cooking | Becka’s Spiced Banana Bread

I love baking! I just love it. It’s like chemistry and art and sensory overload all in one. One of my absolute favorite cookbooks of all time is called Baking Illustrated and it is my favorite because it’s like a textbook. The creators took all of the most popular recipes for each major baked good and tested them noting how the variations affected the outcome. They then started retesting to find the most delicious and perfect combination of ingredients possible. Before each recipe, they explain the testing and how and why they chose the ingredients that they finally did and even why they chose the techniques they chose for prep. It’s fantastic! I learn so much each time I make one of their recipes! I thought I’d let this post go live today so all of you who hit the Farmer’s Markets on the weekend could add bananas to your list if you wanted to try it out.

*recipe adapted from Baking Illustrated’s Banana Bread recipe to be animal product free + have some extra pizazz

Ingredients

3 ripe bananas
2 flax eggs (4 T ground flax seed + 6 T water = 2 flax eggs)
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 c. soymilk (or plain soy yogurt if you want a richer crumb)
6 T Earth Balance buttery spread (softened)
2 c. flour
3/4 c. sugar
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Topping:

1 T cinnamon
2 T brown sugar

Instructions…

1. Prepare a loaf pan by greasing and lightly flouring it. Move the oven rack to the lower middle position and preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Whisk together flour, sugar, soda, and salt in a large bowl.
3. In another bowl, mix together bananas, flax eggs, vanilla, soy milk, and butter and mash together with a wooden spoon. (Do not use a mixer or beaters, the bread consistency is better with hand mashed bananas!)
4. Lightly and gently fold wet mix into dry mix using a rubber spatula until just combined and batter looks thick and chunky without any visible streaks of flour. (This is an important step as overworking the batter makes the loaf tough. Flour contains protein and when protein mixes with water gluten develops. The more you stir, the more the gluten bonds form into bundles and cause the bread to have trouble rising.)
5. Transfer batter into the prepared pan and set aside.
6. In a small bowl, mix together 2 spoonfuls of brown sugar and 1 spoonful of cinnamon for the topping.
7. Sprinkle the topping mixture on top of batter in the pan.
8. Bake until the loaf is golden and a pick inserted into the center comes out clean. (About 50 minutes). Allow it to cool in the pan for 5 minutes then transfer to cooling rack.
9. Serve warm with melted butter. :)

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