Banana Bread!

I made this recipe for 2 reasons - the first was that we had enough over-ripening bananas lying around, and the second was that I wanted to write about it! Banana bread was the very first thing that I baked from scratch, and of course I learned how at MIT. Christmas of my sophomore year, my roommates gave me a huge mixing bowl (which I still use), 3 wooden spoons (2 got lost, 1 still in use), and a Fanny Farmer Cookbook. Initially I liked this recipe back in my ultra-healthy (i.e. no-butter) cooking days because it had no oil, no butter, but turned out well. Looking back now, I think that this no-fat version was simply born out of the fact that Fanny Farmer was written back in the World War I era (and revised in the WWII era) when rationing made this a good option. (The book also has a "War Cake" recipe with no egg, no butter, just 2 Tbsp of margarine...)

Anyways, for several years I stuck with this Fanny Farmer version, but in truth it is a little dry (especially after 1-2 days).  The recipe I use now, I adapted from a Cooking Light recipe (Sept 2003). According to my cooking binder, I first made this on Nov 29, 2008 at home in Richmond. It looks like the CL recipe called for a half-stick of butter, for which I substituted 2 Tbsp oil. I think that in many baking recipes, butter is worth it, but for banana bread which is already so moist and rich from the banana, it really unnecessary.

Marianne's Banana Bread

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1.5 cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas)
2 Tbsp light olive or canola oil
2 large eggs (See caption below -- I forgot to add the eggs and the bread was ok!)
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup plain yogurt (or, can use sweetened yogurt and decrease sugar to ~1/2 cup)
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup toasted walnuts

Preheat oven to 350.
Combine flour, baking soda, salt.
Combine bananas, oil, eggs, sugar, yogurt, vanilla.  Add to the flour mixture and stir until just moistened. Add walnuts (don't over-stir, or bread will be dense and flat).
Spoon into 8.5 x 4.5" loaf pan (or 4 mini-loaf pans, as I did) and bake: (60 minutes for loaf pan, __ min for mini-loaves).

Pre-bake... I realized 15 minutes into baking that I forgot to add the eggs to the recipe!!  We'll see if it still turns out ok...

They baked ok, and they taste good!
Looks like I inadvertently created an egg-free recipe!

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And now the 1997 version: 

FANNY FARMER BANANA BREAD

3 ripe bananas, well-mashed

2 eggs, well-beaten

2 cups flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Preheat to 350. Grease a loaf pan. Mix the eggs and bananas together. Stir in flour, sugar, salt, baking soda. Add walnuts.  Put the batter in the pan and bake for 1 hour. Remove to a rack and serve.

 Making banana bread in McCormick, early 1997

The finished banana bread!