Mattoni's Cooking Blog

A veg*n cooking blog with photos, recipes, hints, secrets, and street cred. Get with it, sucka.

January 29, 2006

Banana bread of opportunity

Banana bread is one of the greatest comfort foods ever. I decided to emphazize this by adding a few other warm and comfortable ingredients: trail mix, cinnamon, and nutmeg. You don't have to add all this, of course, but what fun is making banana bread for 15 people if you aren't going to cram so much into it that none of them feel left out. This is non-discrimanatory banana bread; the melting pot of breads; the bread of life, liberty, and the pursuit of deliciousness.

Ingredients:
2 cups pastry flour
3/4 cups brown sugar
4 ripe bananas (make sure they're all old and brown)
1 cup of your favorite nuts or trail mix (I'm using "Dave's Mix" from Harvest Health, which has all sorts of nuts, seeds, and raisins)
1/2 cup applesauce
3 eggs or egg replacer equivalent (I'm using Ener-G Egg Replacer)
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

You will need a greased bread pan for this (greased with shortening and a special kind of love), as well as an oven preheated to 350 degrees. Get on it!















Put all your dry ingredients together (flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg) in a mixing bowl and mix them all up into a uniform mixture (pictured below is before I mixed them).















Put the egg replacer in a small bowl or mug and mix it together with the warm water. This particular product by Ener-G takes 1 1/2 teaspoons egg replacer and 2 teaspoons warm water to make the equivalent of one egg. I need to equal 3 eggs, so I'm using 4 1/2 teaspoons egg replacer and 6 teaspoons of warm water.















If you're using real eggs, be sure to mix them well. Add the eggs to the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl, along with the brown sugar and apple sauce. Mix them all up.















Now you can add your trail mix or nuts or whatever you do or don't want. It's the choose your own adventure part of the recipe.















Peel the bananas and break them into pieces over your mixing bowl. It is easier to mush everything up into a uniform dough when you have smaller pieces to work with.















Mush everything together until you get something that resembles an edible mud swamp (with bananas and nuts). This is your dough. Neat!
















Pour the mixture into a bread pan and let it settle before you put it in your 350-degree-preheated oven for about 55 minutes.















After 55 minutes, take your bread out and brush something butter-ish on the top. I like to use veggie butter. Then, put the bread back in for about 15 more minutes. The butter will help the bread form a nice brown crust in the final few minutes.
















Once you bread is done, again, take it out and poke it with a fork or a toothpick. If anything sticks, it's still not done. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Usher your bread directly into the oven for another 10 minutes or so. When the bread is finally done, take it out and let it cool before you flip it out onto a plate and serve it up. I don't want you to burn your resourceful little hands. I'm just looking out for you -- you should come to respect this quality in me.
















Variations:
I am, of course, using a special trail mix in this recipe but you don't have to. If the price of mixed nuts has got you down, why not switch to bulk walnuts or maybe even dates or cranberries? Using 1 cup of trail mix is the recipe that seems to work for me, so if you want to substitute something, make sure you use the equivalent amount so you get the right consistency.

2 Comments:

  • At January 30, 2006, Blogger Raini Maddera said…

    i've ALWAYS used well ripened (even slightly fermented) bananas for cooking! looks like an awesome site, keep up the work.

    ~p

     
  • At September 27, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Cool BLOG, very informative contents. I also have a blog similar like yours. Would you mind if I ask you for a link exchange?

     

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