Joy of Cooking Banana Bread: If you are not a seasoned baker, the name of this banana bread recipe might sound slightly absurd to you. However, it found its roots in 1931. The Joy of Cooking was essentially a cookbook published by Irma Rombauer and contained over four thousand recipes for pretty much every food you can imagine.
This particular cookbook also contained a recipe for delicious banana bread. And that is the leitmotif of this blog. In this article, we will tell you everything from preparation to storage of the Joy of Cooking banana bread, in comprehensive detail. So, without further ado, let’s dig right in!
- How to Bake the Joy of Cooking Banana Bread?
- How Long Does it Take to Fully Bake the Joy of Cooking Banana Bread?
- How to Store the Prepared Joy of Cooking Banana Bread?
- How to Freeze the Baked Joy of Cooking Banana Bread?
- What Can You Serve With The Joy of Cooking Banana Bread?
- Tips and Tricks To Cook Delicious Joy of Cooking Banana Bread
- How many people can you serve with this banana bread recipe?
- Can you bake banana bread without using nuts of any kind?
- What happens if you use cake flour rather than all-purpose flour?
How to Bake the Joy of Cooking Banana Bread?
Now, here is a disclaimer. Following this recipe to the T will give you a delectable snack, or dessert, that has the perfect amount of moisture and sweetness. And if you love banana bread as much as we do, you will find it difficult to stop eating. So, bake at your discretion! With that out of the way, let’s get down to brass tacks.
Ingredients
The first step is naturally sourcing the freshest ingredients for this recipe. These have been listed below!
- 3 ripe bananas (the bigger the better)
- 1 and 3 quarters of all-purpose flour
- 3 quarters of finely blended sugar
- 1 quarter of a teaspoon of baking soda
- 2 whole eggs
- 1 teaspoon of baking powder
- Half a cup of unsalted butter
- 1 teaspoon of finely ground cinnamon
- 1 quarter a teaspoon of salt
- 1 cup of nuts like pecans or walnuts
- Vanilla extract
Gather your ingredients along with a few essential pieces of baking equipment. Make sure you have a plethora of mixing bowls. You will need them. Next, also keep your set of measuring cups ready along with an electric blender or mixer. Make sure you also have a large loaf pan and, obviously, a baking oven!
Making Process of Your Banana Bread
And now, to bake the legendary Joy of Cooking recipe for banana bread here is precisely what to do.
- Before you begin to play around with the ingredients, a crucial first step is to get your oven to heat up to the right temperature. Therefore, first, use the unsalted butter to grease up the loaf pan. Make sure you coat the sides of the pan with the butter too. Sprinkle the flour sparingly all over the pan. Then preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
- Pick up one of your mixing bowls and add the flour, powdered sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt, and whisk it together until there are no lumps. The lumps are the bane of a good sponge cake texture. Therefore, pay particular attention to this step. Once you have whisked it extra well, move it to the side.
- Next, pick up one of your larger mixing bowls. In this, add the eggs, melted unsalted butter, bananas, and vanilla extract. Bear in mind that unless you are using an electronic blender, it might be helpful to mash the bananas beforehand. Then, whisk it all together until it becomes a bubbly mixture. Our objective in doing this step is to ensure that our final cake is light and fluffy.
- After this, crush your walnuts or pecan nuts, based on your preference, and roast them in the oven for a while. Once they have browned ever-so-slightly, remove them from the oven and allow them to cool.
- While the nuts are cooling, mix the flour mixture into the banana mixture. When you are performing this step, make sure that you continue to whisk the entire mixture very well because, as we mentioned, we do not want lumps in any circumstance. Adding the flour mixture gradually while simultaneously whisking the banana mixture can help with this.
- Then, add the cooled nuts to this mixture. The consistency of the final cake batter should be fairly thick with a noticeable presence of the nuts.
- The next step is to carefully pour the batter into your greased loaf pan. You can also line the pan with parchment paper for easier removal of the bread.
- Leave the batter in the oven for about 1 hour and 20 minutes. Bear in mind that this time can vary a little bit based on what kind of oven you are using. However, a good indicator can be to check the level of baking using a toothpick. If the toothpick does not get stuck in the center of the cake, your cake is ready..
- Finally, remove your Joy of Cooking banana bread from the oven and let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes.
- Remove from the pan and cool completely on a wire rack before slicing and serving. You can slice the bread into thick or thin slices depending on your preference. Serve and enjoy your delicious homemade banana bread from The Joy of Cooking!
Along with this banana bread, even if you would like to make muffins, then you can check out these pumpkin chocolate chip muffins that give great taste.
How Long Does it Take to Fully Bake the Joy of Cooking Banana Bread?
The most time-consuming step is obviously the baking process once the batter is in the oven. However, all things considered, it should take about 1 hour and 30 minutes in total to fully bake your Joy of Cooking banana bread! We would also advise that you prepare the ingredients and the batter beforehand to further shorten the time you spend baking the cake beforehand!
How to Store the Prepared Joy of Cooking Banana Bread?
Basically, there are 3 ways of storing your prepared Joy of Cooking banana bread. The first one is without any artificial cooling. We feel that this is the best way to store banana bread since the bread remains moist and does not dry out and crumble.
To do this, you need to first allow the baked banana bread to cool down to room temperature. Once you have done that, bring out your plastic cling film and tightly wrap the banana bread. Make sure that the wrapping is as airtight as possible.
Now, place the wrapped banana bread on your kitchen counter and leave it untouched. By following this method you can store banana bread for about 3 days before it starts to go bad.
If you want a slightly longer shelf life, you can take the wrapped banana bread and place it in your refrigerator in a safe spot where it will not be damaged by the other items in your refrigerator. This should keep the banana bread edible for about 1 week.
The final option is to freeze the banana bread. But we would only recommend doing this if you are willing to compromise on the loss of moisture and texture of the bread to a slight extent.
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How to Freeze the Baked Joy of Cooking Banana Bread?
If you want to freeze your banana bread, you need to first allow it to cool entirely before you even begin to wrap it. The presence of even a little vapor will lead to your banana bread developing ice crystals when you freeze it. This will entirely ruin the texture and taste of the banana bread.
Once your banana bread has cooled, wrap it in plastic cling film as tightly as possible. Follow this up with another layer of aluminum foil. Make sure that this covering is airtight. Place the wrapped bread in an airtight container that is freezer-safe.
Place the container in your freezer and leave it there for about 3 months. Bear in mind that freezing your banana bread will lead to dryness when you finally want to eat it. Moreover, if the packaging is not fully airtight, your bread will also develop freezer burn!
What Can You Serve With The Joy of Cooking Banana Bread?
While you can always serve the Joy of Cooking banana bread with a hot cup of cappuccino, we find that the following foods also go extremely well with this delicious bread.
- Drizzle a generous amount of honey on the bread before slicing it up and serving it.
- Alternatively, you can also coat it with either unsalted butter or peanut butter.
- You can serve it with a helping of cream cheese. However, this only tastes good for a few people.
- You can also serve the banana bread with freshly sliced whole fruits like strawberries or apples.
Tips and Tricks To Cook Delicious Joy of Cooking Banana Bread
Baking the perfect bread requires some persistence. Therefore, to help make your process slightly easier, here are some of our favorite tips and tricks that you can implement in your baking session.
- To bring out the deliciousness of bananas even more in your banana bread, slice a banana and arrange the banana slices on your baked banana bread!
- If you are considering throwing out the soft and squishy over-ripe bananas, don’t. In fact, over-ripe bananas are optimal for baking banana bread since they are already mushy and tend to be sweeter than regular bananas.
- Keep checking your banana bread in the oven after the 40-minute mark because some ovens do tend to heat up and bake the bread sooner than 1 hour and 20 minutes.
- Prepare the ingredients beforehand if you feel you cannot devote an hour and a half when baking the banana bread. This will cut your preparation time down by almost 20 to 30 minutes!
FAQs on the Joy of Cooking Banana Bread Recipe
1. How many people can you serve with this banana bread recipe?
If you follow the measurements that we have mentioned above, you can comfortably feed 8 persons. If you need to prepare bread for more people, you can either double the quantity or cook the same recipe in two separate ovens.
2. Can you bake banana bread without using nuts of any kind?
Yes, you can bake banana bread without using nuts of any kind. Adding nuts is a matter of personal preference. We enjoy it because of the crunch and flavor it adds to the banana bread. However, it is not an essential ingredient in banana bread.
3. What happens if you use cake flour rather than all-purpose flour?
If you use cake flour rather than all-purpose, your bread is likely to be lighter and fluffier. However, all-purpose flour keeps the bread slightly dense.
Key Takeaways
And that is a wrap on the Joy of Cooking banana bread recipe you wanted. This blog answers every question pertinent to bake the most delicious banana bread recipe you have ever tasted. So, what are you waiting for? Begin preparing the most delicious breakfast dessert ever!
Still, if you want to use more recipes like caramel pecan cinnamon rolls, and many more, just check out our canfoodgobad.com website.