Sunday, January 3, 2010

How to Make Banana Bread

By Emily Cook

Tasty, healthy and simple to make, banana bread is a hit with families, especially children. Banana bread can be served as a desert, a breakfast food or a great snack for sending with the children to school. Using bananas that are overripe is a great way to stretch your food dollars. Let's make banana bread.

Gather the Ingredients

When starting, pull out all the ingredients you will need. This will include: 2 bananas mashed, 1/3 cup butter softened, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2/3 cup of sugar, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1 3/4 cups of flour, Extra flour and cooking spray for preparing the pan.

Getting it Ready for the Oven

Turn the oven to 350 degrees and get your pan ready by spraying it with cooking spray and dusting it will flour. This allows the bread to be taken out of the pan with ease. Mix the mashed bananas with the baking soda, salt, flour, baking powder and sugar in a bowl.

Add the softened butter to the flour mixture, plus the shortening, then mix everything until the mixture appears like crumbs. Add two of the eggs then continue stirring. Pour the batter into the floured and greased pan. Put the pan inside the oven, then bake at 350 degrees F for 30 to 40 minutes. Try to insert a toothpick into the middle of the banana bread. It should come out clean to confirm that the bread is baked well.

Final Tips

You will find that work can be easier if you use a bread pan measuring about 4 x 8 inches deep. Try to reduce the total number of times that you open the oven to check on the condition of the banana bread, since heat can escape every time you open the oven door, thereby making baking periods longer.

Use bananas that are overripe or past, characterized by a lot of brown spots on the peel. These are generally sweeter compared to ripe bananas. If the bread is browning quickly, but the center is still raw, you can cover the bread using aluminum foil. The bread will continue baking, although the browning process is slowed down. If you have extra bananas and want to make 2 or more loaves in a single session, freeze the extra loaves to prevent these from spoiling. Always use oven mitts when taking the banana bread out of the oven to keep your hand from getting burning.

Making Chocolate Banana Bread

To make chocolate banana bread, you can add 1 cup of dark chocolate chips, icing sugar (to dust) and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. When sifting the baking powder and flour inside the bowl, add the caster sugar. Melt the chocolate chips and butter in a double boiler. Dust the final loaf with caster sugar. You will need about 1 hour to bake the chocolate banana bread. Allow the bread to cool for 40 to 50 minutes.

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