Bread

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January 20, 2011

Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread

Posted by itsmeangie621 under Bananas, Bread, Breakfast, Cinnamon
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Banana is my go to fruit when I want to bake, and but I don’t know what.  I’ll pick up a bunch of bananas some point in the week–have some for breakfast or a snack for a few days…and by the end of the week I have some awesomely ripe and black bananas. Perfect!  Michael knows that by the time the bananas are spotted, he knows they’re off limits to him.

I already have a go to banana nut bread recipe, but found one that was more cinnamon intensive and knew it would be perfect for my niece and nephews!  I was heading to San Francisco for MLK weekend, and wanted to bring them something a tad healthier than the Chocolate S’more Cookies (Plus I was getting over a terribly nasty cold I had been fighting for 2 weeks, so I didn’t have too much energy for anything more labor intensive).

I think that I still love my default banana nut bread recipe–but this recipe was also very, very good.  Major differences?  This recipe is much lighter on the banana flavor.  The next time I make this recipe, I may add an additional banana.  The flavors were much more subtle overall.  The saving grace to this recipe?  It’s also much a lot less sweet than my default recipe–which I actually really enjoyed.  I will be reducing the sugar in my original banana nut bread recipe the next I make it.

Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread

good for one 9×5 loaf

  • 3 over-ripe bananas, mashed up
  • 1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • dash of salt
  • 1 1/2 cups flour

For the swirl:

  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 Tbs cinnamon
  1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour a 9×5 loaf pan.
  2. Mix bananas, butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla together. Sprinkle top of mixture with baking soda and salt. Gently stir in flour. Mix just enough to combine.
  3. In a small dish, mix together the 1/4 cup sugar and 1 Tbs cinnamon.
  4. Add 1/2 of the batter to the loaf pan and then a little more than sprinkle half of the cinnamon-sugar mixture all over the batter in the pan. Add the rest of the batter, and then sprinkle the leftover cinnamon-sugar on top.
  5. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
  6. Allow bread to rest in pan for 20 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool.
Adapted from Lovin’ From the Oven
 

January 4, 2011

Pumpkin Walnut Bread

Posted by itsmeangie621 under Bread, Nuts, Pumpkin, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , |
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Happy New Year!  I can hardly believe it’s already 2011.  I hope everyone enjoyed themselves…I know I did!  3 day weekends are just heavenly–and I would have loved mine a bit more if I hadn’t woken up to a cold the other day.  That aside!  I’m sure we all have general ideas of goals we’d like to achieve this year.  I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions.  I don’t know if I’ve ever been all too serious about any resolution I’ve ever made, but this year seems rather important.  I’m getting married in the fall of 2012–which doesn’t give me a whole lot of time to get into the physical shape I want to get in (well, considering the fact that I’d like to keep this blog up and running with baked goods). I guess that means I’ll just have to give away more.  I guess, I could also try to make a handful of healthy items. Ehh, we’ll see.

Okay, onward to all things yummy.  I know that the holidays are over and people tend to ignore pumpkin for the October rolls around again…BUT I adore pumpkin. Not only is it scrumptious–it’s also very, very forgiving.  Cut a little bit of sugar here and there, accidentally leave the dessert in the oven for a few minutes longer than expected and you know what?  It’s nearly perfect anyway.

This year for Christmas, I decided to give all of Mike’s aunts and uncles some baked goods–something loafy that would package well.   They’re not huge of anything overly sweet (although I think they secretly like cream cheese frosting), so I ruled out anything that would need glaze.  After taking a look in my pantry and fridge, decided on the Elvis Presley Pound cake I made earlier in the month and this pumpkin walnut bread.

This pumpkin walnut bread–it’s amazing.  It’s perfect.  Not too pumpkin-y, but wonderfully spiced.  The bread is wonderfully moist and keeps well for days.  Mike’s aunt called me a few days later just to tell me how much she liked it and asked me for the recipe.  This bread got rave reviews across the board.  I will make this again and soon.  Pumpkin should be seasonless.

Oh–and here’s a note when you’re testing for doneness:  If you insert a toothpick inserted in the center of the bread comes out slightly damp—it’s okay as long as the rest of the bread is cooked.  You don’t want to burn the bread waiting for the center to cook.  Since you are leaving the bread in the hot pans for 15-30 minutes, the bread will continue to cook.  And it will be perfect.

Pumpkin Walnut Bread

Ingredients

1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups white sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon all spice
1 cup of walnuts

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease and flour two loaf pans.
  2. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water, vanilla and sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.  Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Add nuts and stir in well.  Pour into the prepared pans.
  3. Bake for about 40-50 minutes.  Bread is done, when toothpick inserted in middle of the loaf comes out relatively clean (remember note above).
  4. Remove from oven. Allow bread to rest in pans for 15-30 minutes.  Remove and place on cooling rack.

Enjoy! Tastes even better the next day!

I found the recipe in an old binder I had in college.  Where this came from…I have no idea!

 

 

November 16, 2010

Banana Nut Bread makes me weak

Posted by itsmeangie621 under Bananas, Bread, Breakfast, Nuts | Tags: , , , , , |
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I LOVE banana nut bread and I’ve accepted that banana nut bread will never be healthy.  Yeah, it’s dark brown–makes you think of wheat bread–and it somehow registers that its healthy.  No? Not you?  The things my mind will resort to make rationalize my baking.

Either way, this recipe is sooooooooooooo good.  I always have a pile of ripening bananas in my apartment.  I buy tons of them hoping Mike will actually eat some fruit, and they always end up ripening faster than I can eat.  I suppose this is one  way to get him to eat some fruit.  Works out just fine for my mom, who asks for banana nut bread every other week.  This recipe gives you 2 huge loaves of banana nut bread–and if you have no plans of giving the other away, it’s probably a good idea to cut the recipe in half–eating too much is detrimental to your waistline.   I have a good system going on here–we go halfsies with Mike’s mom.

Enjoy!

 

Banana Nut Bread

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 cup butter, partially melted and cooled
  • 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups white sugar (Depending on how sweet you like it. I keep mine steady at 1 1/4)
  • 2  1/2  cups mashed super,overripe bananas
  • 4 eggs, beaten
  • 1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease two 9×5 inch loaf pan.
  2. Sift the flour, salt and baking soda into a large bowl.
  3. In a microwave safe bowl, cut each stick of butter in half.  Throw in microwave and partially melt butter for about 30 seconds. Allow to cool–3-5 minutes.
  4. Now in the bowl of your electronic stand mixer, blend the butter and sugar until smooth. On low, stir in the bananas, eggs, cinnamon, vanilla,  and walnuts until well blended.
  5. Add dry ingredients to mixture and mix on low until combined.  Divide the batter evenly between the two loaf pans.
  6. Bake for 60 to 70 minutes in the preheated oven, until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out clean. Let the loaves cool in the pans for at least 5 minutes,
  7. Transfer to rack to cool completely.
  8. Slice when ready to serve.
  9. Tastes fantastic at any temperature!
 

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