IDEAS IN FOOD: Banana de Mie

Amaya has been hounding us for banana bread. Every time we picked up bananas intended for bread we ended up devouring them. Hence no bread. Prior to departing for Costa Rica we had plans for making banana bread. This time the bananas ripened and we ran out of time. The night before leaving I put the bananas in the freezer. I was ready with ripe bananas for the next time Amaya asked for banana bread. Which was the morning after our 21-hour journey home.

Aki pulled the bananas out of the freezer and let them thaw on the cutting board. I took over and began adapting our Bananas Foster Bread from Ideas in Food. The freezing and thawing of the ripened bananas made them even softer. We had only 4 bananas ready for bread. I cut the recipe in half. Mostly. I started making modifications. And I got distracted in the process. I ended up using all 5 eggs that the original recipe calls for. For Amaya I omitted the rum. I added buttermilk in its place.

I also wanted to make the entire bread in the food processor. Banana bread is often tender. The extra working of the gluten in the machine should give it some additional structure. Since I was not going to cook the bananas in rum I added 20 grams of brown butter solids for toasty rich notes. I baked the bread in a pain de mie pan mainly for shape. Because I changed the shape of the pan and added the lid I shortened the baking time. I baked the loaf for 45 minutes. It was 190°F internally. As I removed the lid I made the connection, banana de mie. We let the bread cool for 15 minutes in the pan. After the initial cooling we removed the pan and let the bread cool on a wire rack.

The structure of the bread is delicate. It is not fall apart tender. The crumb is even and moist. I look forward to making more quick breads even quicker and with more structure in the food processor.