It's a Mother @*&%ing Bake Off

Acquired haphazardly over weeks, bananas suddenly take over our freezer from time to time and demand to be made into banana bread. This evening as I reached for my trusted Betty Crocker recipe I thought perhaps the folks at Cook's Illustrated had a recipe worth trying. Sure enough, a taunting recipe appeared in my search called "The Ultimate Banana Bread." How could I not try this recipe? Intrigued that it required me to "juice the bananas" for extra banana taste I dove in.

Complete aside: every recipe I make from CI lately requires me to juice something that I would never conceive of juicing (see delicious Corn Chowder recipe) seriously, it has you juice the corn...

Cook's Illustrated Ultimate Banana Bread.

So, with more than enough frozen bananas to tackle both recipes, I began with the CI recipe and found it very simple to make. I did include the toasted walnuts. Sure it makes a few extra dirty dishes, but I figured why not. If it makes the "ultimate" bread it would be worth the toil.

My trusty BC recipe (see my tweaked version below), I made while the other baked and put it into three smaller loaves since I'd have to give some away. Two people can only eat so much banana bread in one week.

The result? The CI version cooked quickly in just 55 minutes. Using more than a cup less of flour than the BC recipe, the density of the CI batter eliminates one of the issues the BC recipe has with often not being finished in the center when the top of the loaf is already browned. The "shingled" banana pieces on top made it somewhat difficult to remove from the loaf pan, but are supposed to help with the loaf rising evenly. The BC recipe while it took 1 hour and 15 minutes to fully bake, the more dense loaf is more reminiscent of a loaf-style bread. In the end, we both agreed the BC recipe is still on top for us.  A first loss for CI and few less dishes to do next time the frozen bananas come calling.

Banana Bread (modified from the Betty Crocker New Cookbook version)

Betty Crocker Banana Bread.
The pans were slightly overfilled.

1 1/4 c sugar

1/2 c stick butter, softened

2 eggs

5 ripe mashed bananas

1/2 c skim milk

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 c all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 c chopped nuts

Set oven to 350 degrees, make sure the upper rack is in the middle of the oven. Grease bottoms only of pan(s) using shortening or spray.

Mix sugar and butter, stir in eggs. Add bananas, milk, vanilla. Stir in flour, baking soda, salt. Fold in nuts

Pour into pans. Top with a quick blend of finely chopped walnuts, sugar (and brown sugar too if you have it) to create a strudel-like topping. Bake 1 hour or until toothpick comes out clean. Check at 45 minutes depending on the heat of your oven. Cool on baking rack for at least 15 minutes before removing from loaf pan and allowing to cool further.