EatOrToss Flexipe: This recipe can bend and twist for easier, waste-minimizing cooking.
Back before there were food scrap cookbooks, movements like SaveTheFood and, oh, I don’t know, websites like EatOrToss, there was one food-waste avoiding recipe that just about everybody knew: banana bread baked with overripe bananas.
Yet for years the right banana bread recipe eluded me. So often they were too sweet. Not spiced enough. Too dry.
Until, one glorious day, while staring down some very brown bananas, I discovered Deb Perelman’s recipe on Smitten Kitchen. It’s moist, heavily spiced and always comes out amazing. It’s also the product of much experimentation and evolution. There’s a reason she calls it Elise’s Friend Heidi’s Friend Mrs. Hockmeyer’s Banana Bread, As Jacked Up by Deb.
I’m not going back.
Not only is this recipe amazing, it also bends to your whims as needed. Deb suggests three to four bananas. I tend to use three because otherwise I have trouble telling if it’s done (too much banana gooeyness can get confusing…check out the hole in the middle of the one pictured above for proof of my impatient fork prodding). I’ve even made it with two bananas before; I just added a little extra flour and it was still good. I also use the lower sugar measurement (¾ of a cup). And, for what it’s worth, because I just love all those fall spices, I sometimes jack it up a bit more and add more cinnamon and nutmeg and a bit more than a pinch of ground cloves.
Recently, the recipe further proved its mettle: when asked to bring a dairy-free dessert, I successfully traded the butter for a combo of coconut oil and canola oil. It still came out perfectly cracked on top and soft and spicy inside.
So, I’m not including an ingredients list or step-by-step instructions on EatOrToss today. Instead, I’m just going on the record saying that I finally have a foolproof banana bread recipe and please follow the link to Elise’s Friend Heidi’s Friend Mrs. Hockmeyer’s Banana Bread, As Jacked Up by Deb.
