Banana Bread Revisited

Several of the bakers last time, myself included, thought that the banana flavor in the Whole Wheat Banana Bread as a bit subdued.  Interestingly, the most recent issue of Cook’s Illustrated had a recipe aimed at addressing the same issue in banana quick breads.  Their solution was (duh) to use more bananas.  When I made the half recipe for the last post, which called for 1 cup of mashed bananas, I used 2 large bananas, which came out to be a bit more than 1 cup.  Cook's used 6 (six) bananas per loaf! (5 in the dough and one sliced on top.)  Their trick, in addition to being sure to use ripe bananas, was to cook the bananas in the microwave for 5 minutes to get them to extrude their juice, and then drain the bananas in a sieve over a bowl for 15 minutes.  Alternatively, Cook's says you can use defrosted frozen bananas (freezing is a great way to save ripe bananas for baking or smoothies, just peel before freezing, trust me) since they will also extrude their juice, just be sure to save the juice as you defrost them.

Cook's then reduced the juice on the stove so as to not make their batter too wet.  I did this, but I am not sure it was necessary for the way I used the juice.  The half recipe called for 3/4 cup of water, so I put the reduced juice in the measuring cup and added water to get 3/4 cup.  So I boiled off the water and then added it back.  Reminds me of the two boys (girls are smarter than this) walking home from school one spring afternoon when the came across a puddle full of frogs.  The first boy said "bet you $5 you won't eat one of those frogs."  Not able to turn down a dare, the second boy ate a frog and got $5.  The first boy observed that he could not believe his friend had actually eaten the frog.  This prompted the second boy to say "bet you $5 you won't eat one of those frogs."  Again, faced with a dare, the first boy ate a frog, and got his $5 back.  The boys continued on, and as they reached home the first one asked the second "why did we eat the frogs?"

After draining  the 5 cooked bananas I measured them, and had about a cup, which is what the recipe called for, so I left that alone.  Other than that, and adding some extra cinnamon and walnuts, I made the half recipe as before.  I baked the entire batch, using a slightly larger loaf pan.  Being in for a penny, I went in for the pound and added a sliced banana on top.

 

The verdict?

I did  not notice any difference from the batch with two bananas.  My saintly wife and not only perfect but red-haired daughter thought it tasted a bit more of banana, but not much. But with three times the number of bananas there should have been a big difference.   Which makes me wonder if the whole grain is either muting or overpowering the fruit flavor.  That is what Michelle speculated when she was disappointed with her Cherry Bread.

Well, since there there is no such thing as failure, only feedback, I  thought I would share my experiment.