Banana bread/cake

Zutaten

Bread:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temp

1 to 1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar*

2 eggs

4 ripe bananas**

2 cups flour***

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg****

Topping:

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, melted

1-2 bananas, cut into slices

Anweisungen

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease an 8” x 8” baking dish and set aside. (You can probably use a loaf pan, but you’ll get less of the topping and IDK what it does to the texture.)

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, blending between each egg. Add in the 4 bananas, broken into pieces.

In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add flour to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined.

Melt the remaining ¼ c butter, and in the meantime, scatter the rest of the brown sugar into the bottom of your baking dish. Add the melted butter and place the banana slices on top. Then pour in the batter and level. You can carefully whack the dish on the counter get out the air bubbles, but I usually forget.

Bake for an hourish. If the top starts to get too dark, cover it loosely with foil. Cake is done when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out mostly clean.

Let the cool as long as you can before eating, but it’s best warm. You can turn it out onto a serving platter after 20-30 min, or eat it from the pan like an animal.

Notizen

This recipe is a combination of Emily’s mom’s “regular-ass banana bread” and the cake linked here. (The linked recipe makes a gigantic cake, so be forewarned. Or happy.) https://www.thetakeout.com/recipe-caramelized-banana-upside-down-cake-or-bread-1842903507/

* I use all dark brown sugar, but you could use half dark brown sugar and half cane sugar, or all white sugar, whatever you have. The dark brown sugar gives it a better depth of flavor IMO, though.

** Yellow bananas have more starch and browner bananas have more sugar, so if you use yellow bananas, you’ll have a sturdier bread, while the riper bananas will give you a gooier cake. I like the browner bananas.

*** To measure flour, stir the flour in the bag or container, then spoon flour into the measuring cup and level with a knife.

**** Use a real nutmeg. Seriously.

You can freeze slices after wrapping them in plastic. Reheat by unwrapping and reheating for ~1 minute.