As American As Banana Bread

They say, if fruit were countries, the banana would be a superpower.

Banana’s  global dominance is unquestionable. No wonder, the world started panicking when bananas were announced to be at risk due to the root fungus.

So popular, easy, healthy and affordable they are that we can’t imagine life without them. Seriously, can you imagine life without bananas? Yet, we allow them to grow overripe and almost inedible sitting in our fruit baskets for many days totally ignored until they are too mushy to eat.

Then we bake banana bread.

The story goes that it all started in Hawaii where there was a surplus of bananas during World War I. Due to a very few ships available to export the bananas, new ways of using them were developed to avoid wasting the fruit.

The bakeries started incorporating bananas into their bread baking recipes and banana flour. The process of cutting banana strips, drying them and grinding them into flour had long been used in the West Indies. Since wheat was rationed during the war time and later during the Great Depression, banana flour came in very handy.

Some will argue that the Vienna Model Bakery was one the first bakeries to advertise banana bread using banana flour as something new in 1893, but It has become the standard of American cook books in the beginning of 1930s together with advertising of baking soda and baking powder.

Overripe raw bananas are central to homemade modern banana breads. The recipe is quite  simple, the result is delicious and satisfying. And the good news is that those overripe brownish mushy bananas that have been sitting on the table for days are not wasted.

This moist and sweet banana bread can be baked in advance and kept for a few days. It almost never happened in my family, but it is theoretically possible.

Like most of the modern banana bread bakers, I use overripe bananas for my recipe. Its skin has to go real brown to achieve the best taste.

Let’s get started!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line your loaf pan with buttered parchment paper.

Place 2 eggs, 1 ½ cups of sugar in a stand mixer and mix on medium speed until combined. Add 3-4 crushed overripe bananas, one stick of melted butter, a teaspoon of cognac or rum, a tablespoon of vanilla, 1 ½ cup of flour, a teaspoon of baking soda and continue mixing at medium speed until combined.

Add coarsely chopped pecans and mix again.

Pour the batter into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour and 10 min until the skewer  comes out clean. Leave to cool for about 10 min and then remove from a pan onto a rack or board and let it cool down completely.

Wrap it into aluminum foil and keep it for up to 5 days if you can.

So stop what you are doing and come for a cup of tea and a piece of banana bread!

And don’t forget to celebrate the National Banana Bread Day on February 23!

P.S. All the food featured in this post has been prepared and photographed by me.