Holiday Baking

Despite what you are thinking as we head into the holiday season it’s not the food that you eat, bake, or bring with you to the party… it’s the company you keep. So stop worrying if your dessert will stack up or if you should just offer to bring the wine and get in the kitchen and make something you’d like to eat. Chances are it’ll be a hit and I can assure you that while we all hope to be the person whose dish people rave about for years to come, the real conversation is around the friends, family, new year and the next party. In the coming weeks I’ll be posting recipes that will help on both the sweet and savory side I’m going to stick with baking this week in preparation for Thanksgiving. This recipe is one that has been a great success for me and can pass as a dessert or hold its own with the appetizers. It’s also a great breakfast/brunch entry the morning the turkey is taking up all the space in the oven or the next day when you need something quick as you head out to the Black Friday sales.

Quick breads or breakfast breads are one of the easiest places to start in baking. The ingredients and instructions are pretty straight forward, there is no yeast or kneading to worry about and since you can make it in advance there is no pressure to deliver with your guests watching. There are a lot of varieties of quick breads that I like and fruit based are some of my favorite. This is by far my favorite of all of them and still fascinates me because I HATE bananas. Yet, I have singlehandedly eaten an entire loaf of this bread. It’s a great seasonal bread with lots of good fall spices. I’ve made it with and without walnuts because of food allergies and enjoyed both. I recommend chopping the walnuts up to small pieces for a nice nutty result throughout the bread.

Banana Bread

Yield: 1 loaf pan

 

AP Flour                   10 oz (2 1/4 cups)

Baking Soda             1 t

Cinnamon                 ¼ t

Salt                              ¼ t

Eggs, Large               2

Sugar                           9 oz (1 cup +2 T)

Canola Oil                  ½ c

Bananas, ripe            3 large

Sour Cream                 1 oz

Vanilla                           1 t

Walnuts, toasted         2 oz           

1.     Sift dry ingredients together

2.     Using an electric mixer or beaters, beat eggs and sugar together on med high speed until very light yellow and fluffy (when the whisk or beaters are pulled out of the mix it should leave a ribbon sitting on the top of the mix in the bowl and slowly “melt” into that mixture)

3.     Reduce speed to low and slowly pour in oil being sure not to break the egg mixture (*breaking refers to he separation of ingredients. This can be avoided by going slowly and making sure it is all incorporated)

4.     Mash bananas and add along with sour cream and vanilla. Here personal preference coming into play with how chunky you prefer to leave your bananas. I like to get them to a state where they are almost pureed and there are little to no chunks. Be sure that they are not only chopped but are at least a little mashed so you have more “liquid” in the batter.

5.     Fold in dry mix and walnuts

Baking

Grease and flour pan. Pour in batter and bake at 375 degrees, for about 1 hour. The test for this is just like a regular cake and the easiest way to test is with a toothpick or skewer being poked into the center of the bread and making sure it comes out completely soon.

 

Storage

Store at room temp or in refrigerator. Can be frozen up to one month.