The Best Banana Bread

Simple and delicious; after many tweaks and adjustments in the lab, one of my most favourite recipes to prepare.   I have attached a photo of my late mother Pearl’s original recipe.

I like to think that Max and I are lucky enough to have inherited some of my Mom’s and Bubi’s baking genes.

Ingredients:

3 ripe bananas
2 large eggs
¼ cup canola/grapeseed/olive/coconut oil
¼ cup orange juice/soy milk/almond milk/coconut milk
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. kosher salt
OPTIONAL-1 cup semisweet chocolate chips tossed in 1/8 cup any flour

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350F and line a standard loaf pan with parchment paper, sprayed with cooking spray.

Place bananas, eggs, oil, milk, vanilla and sugar in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Process until well combined.

In a separate bowl, combine flours, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.

Add to food processor and pulse until just combined.

Fold in chocolate chips if using.

Transfer batter to loaf pan.

Bake for 60 minutes.

This banana bread freezes well and is a great use for overripe bananas. If you have bananas sitting on your counter use them to make this banana bread.

Science Fact of the Week:

Bananas are inexpensive and great to keep on hand. As they ripen they release ethylene gas, which is a natural part of the ripening procedure of most fruits and vegetables. If you have a couple unripe bananas and one ripe one, throw them together into a brown paper bag to speed up the ripening process. This also works to soften an avocado. Put a ripe banana with an avocado in a brown bag overnight and it speeds up the ripening process.