The Quick Bread Ratio At Work Again – Banana Bread with Walnuts

I wanted to provide one additional example of the ratio I work with when developing a variety of quick breads. This Banana Bread recipe is almost identical to the pumpkin bread from my last post.

Banana Walnut Bread

Dry Ingredients:

Flour – 10 oz.
Baking Powder – 2 tsp.
Baking Soda – 1/4 tsp.
Salt – 1 tsp.
Sugar – 5 oz. (50% of the total flour weight)
Nutmeg – 1/2 tsp.

Wet Ingredients:

Melted Butter – 4 oz. (3.2 oz. butterfat)
Egg – 1 whole egg + 1 yolk (about 3 oz – I used extra large eggs)
Liquid – 14+ oz. banana + 2 oz. lemon juice/buttermilk – counts as 9+ oz.
Finely Grated Lemon Zest – from 1 lemon

Garnish:

Chopped Walnuts – about 1+ cup tossed in flour – I didn’t measure these out.

Notes – Any garnish used in a quick bread recipe should be tossed in flour first to prevent it from sinking to the bottom during baking. I folded the walnuts into my batter after mixing the batter. The only changes here from the pumpkin bread are: (1) using less sugar, (2) using different garnish in the quick bread (mixed in the same way), (3) using primarily banana for the liquid component & (4) different spices. Again, when using things like pumpkin or bananas for a quick bread, I count them as liquid at 1/2 their total weight – in this case, I used four bananas for a total of 14+ ounces so I counted it as a little more than 7 ounces of liquid and added the juice from my zested lemon and a little buttermilk (I’m running low on sour cream) to bring the total liquid component up to about the same as the weight of the flour in the recipe. Lemon and bananas are best friends – lemon tends to brighten the taste of the bananas and make the final bread taste banana-y (as opposed to lemony). I used a tiny amount of nutmeg here – enough, perhaps, for a subtle fragrance? Many people would omit the nutmeg in favor of some vanilla. This recipe made enough batter for a 9″ x 5″ loaf pan – I sprayed my pan with baking spray before filling it with batter. I also sprinkled the top of the batter generously with sugar before baking – for what it’s worth, I used organic sugar this time because it has more of a golden hue and the slight taste of molasses which I thought would go well with the banana flavor – I sprinkled the top VERY generously. I baked this banana bread at 350°F until the internal temperature registered 200°F on an instant read digital thermometer (about 65 minutes this time).

Comments – The amount of sugar you use is a judgement call. Using less than 4 ounces probably would not have been sweet enough – some recipes would call for a lot more. I try to use just enough sugar to complement the underlying flavor; I don’t want the sugar to be the dominant flavor. This banana bread is freakishly good if you garnish it with chocolate chips instead of walnuts – sinful, really.

Using Bananas – A lot of recipes differ on how many bananas to use for banana bread. The number of bananas isn’t as important as the weight the bananas contribute to the batter and how ripe the bananas are. The bananas I used here were small-ish. If I had used larger bananas, I probably would have needed only three of them. Just be sure to count your banana weight for half of your liquid weight and add enough other liquid for a total liquid weight that is a little less than your flour weight.

Many sources insist that you use only overripe bananas: bananas that have turned fully black. Personally, I don’t like to eat bananas that are that wine-y/liquor-y and I don’t like that taste in my banana bread either. If you happen to like that flavor for your banana bread, I would recommend using a little less banana and more of some other liquid (like buttermilk or sour cream) in your banana bread to keep that flavor from being too pronounced in the bread. I also prefer to use bananas with some firmness because they do not disintegrate when mashed and mixed with liquid – I find that small chunks of banana in banana bread help to give it a more pronounced and recognizably banana taste.

Here are the bananas I had to work with:

In my opinion: maybe too ripe. I probably should have made my banana bread two or three days ago when they were just beginning to spot.

I weighed-out my bananas first. Four bananas summed to 14 3/8 ounces.

I added the zest from one lemon to the bananas and 2 ounces total of lemon juice and buttermilk.

Adding the liquid to the bananas makes it easier to mash-up the bananas.

When mashing the bananas, I always leave some chunks of banana intact.

After mashing the bananas coarsely into the liquid and zest, I added the egg, the egg yolk, and the melted butter – my liquid and fat. I folded the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients as before – then folded-in the walnuts. Etc.