Transcription
If you've ever had banana bread, you know that normally it's dry. It's flat. It's kind of nah, you know. It's This is the best recipe for banana bread. I've used it for years. It is so tasty. It's moist. It's delicious. And I can't wait to show you all of the tricks I've learned over the years to make this so that it is just so worth eating.
I've got the oven heating on 350°. It calls for roasted pecans or walnuts. If you don't want to add the nuts, you don't have to, but if you're going to add them, I would highly recommend just browning these up just a little bit. The first thing we're going to do is I have some pecans. You can use pecans or walnuts. So, I'm going to turn this on to a medium and I'm going to let these sit here while we're working on other things. You have to watch these carefully. I usually oven roast, you know, any nuts that I'm going to roast in the oven really low and slow, but for this recipe, I just put them in a pan and let them go until they get I can smell them and then I know that they're going to add some extra flavor. The taste is just unbelievable. It adds so much flavor to this banana bread.
The next thing I want to do is talk about the bananas. Hello. Hello. One of the problems people have with banana bread is that they use bananas that aren't ripe enough. Banana, this is the most important part. The overripe bananas add so much flavor to this. And I can tell when they're ripe or overly ripe because I push down and it just feels all squishy in there. It's not like when you squish a regular ripe normal banana. These are ready to go. And so what I do is I just peel these. These can go for quite a while to get overly ripe, but that is a perfectly that's a perfect looking ripe banana overripe banana. So, we're just going to peel all of these. And I've got three large bananas here today. Going to get rid of some of those strings. I wouldn't eat these. These are too ripe for me. But I leave the brown spots on the bananas. They're fine. And then when you're pushing them down, I just do this with a fork. You can also use a potato masher if you want to, but you don't need to. I just I've done it with a fork for my entire life. And if they're ripe enough, it's very [Music] easy. You want to make sure all these pieces are broken down. [Music] You want them to start looking a little wet. And so this is, as you can see, this is starting to look wet. You just want to make sure that you've squished the large. You just want it to be mush. Basically, mush, mush, mush, mush, mushy. All right. All right. So, that's done and ready. Don't do this too far be beforehand. They turn brown and you don't want that to start doing that. So, we'll leave these here like this. We're going to take a look at these nuts and see how they're doing. Okay. I'm starting to smell these a little bit. So, let's So, they're looking they they're a little bit darker than they were. We'll just keep this going.
So, now what we're going to do is we've got some flour here. We're going to put that in a large bowl. We've got some sugar. Going to put those in the bowl, the same bowl. Some [Music] salt and baking soda. All right. And we're going to take our whisk and we're going to whisk that all together. So, you just want to mix that all up and leave that alone for just a moment. So, now we're going to take a medium bowl and we are going to scrape our banana into [Music] that. Okay. I like the way those look. They're They're getting darker. You can see that the pan is still hot. I'm going to leave them in the pan for another 30 seconds and then I'm going to pour them in the I think those are dark enough. I think I've changed my mind. Let's put these all back in [Music] this. Okay. So, those will cool off while we're cooking, while we're putting this together.
All right. So, now we have two eggs, large eggs, and we're going to whisk those together. Don't put these in whole. You do not want to mix this together too hard. So, you want to make sure those eggs are broken down before you add them to the the next part of this. So, we're just going to make sure those [Music] are get those in there. We have some melted [Music] butter. And we have um whole milk yogurt. You can use the lowfat if you want to. This is plain yogurt. I'm a huge fan of full full fat milk. Um, but you if you'd like to try to make this a little less caloric, the taste won't it'll be fine. The taste isn't quite as rich, but it's okay. I've always used the whole milk. And then we have some vanilla. And I'm going to take my whisk and whisk this together. just to get that mixed [Music] up. And that yogurt in there is going to work with the baking soda. And I've always assumed that it's because the yogurt is acting as the um leavenning.
Now, this is the part where we have to Oh, I already have a spatula. Don't need another one. Don't need to. We're going to pour this in to the our flour [Music] mixture. And then we do not want to overm mix this or it will you'll get a flat banana bread. Renee says this next part is the most important thing you need to do in order to achieve the perfect loaf of banana bread. And she's going to show it to you right after this. So, we're going to start folding. You're just going to lift that flour up. Lift. Lift and dump that right over itself. And you're just going to keep doing that. You do not want to stir at any point from this point [Music] forward. Gently. When I get to about this point, I don't want that completely done because we have to add these nuts and you still have to keep folding. So, at this point, when it's not quite done, I then add those pecans that we've roasted and I start folding that in so that we don't have to keep folding separately. If you put them in it after you've got this all done, you're just over stirring [Music] [Applause] this. Get all that flour off the [Music] sides. Just fold gently and get that. [Music] Don't want any flowers showing, but you don't want to mishandle this at [Music] [Applause] all. And we are going to call that good. Those nuts look mixed evenly. Yep, that all looks like it's mixed nicely.
Now, I have an 8 and 1/2x 4 and 1/2 in pan. It's a standard loaf pan. I've greased this with shortening. You can use vegetable spray, no flour, just vegetable spray or shortening or butter. I find the shortening gives it a nice really brown um bottom. And then you just gently put this in the [Music] pan. Make sure you get all of that out. And then once again, gently, gently, we're going to push this around so that it's even in the [Music] [Music] pan. It's ready. This is one of those things that if I leave the eggs and butter out overnight, I just get up in the morning and make this. It takes it literally takes 15 minutes to put together. And let's get put this in the oven for about 50 to 55 minutes. I'll start at 45 minutes and we'll see how it turns out. [Music]
So, let's see how this is. It's gone about 52 minutes. That is a lovely golden brown. When I push on that, it's bouncing back. Can also test it. I I don't temp this, but you can I like using this instead of a knife or something because if it's not done, it the risk of flattening it out is less. So, let's just see if that's coming out. Well, it was coming out clean. Let's see. No, I think that's got a little bit more to go. I think that's got a little bit on the bottom there. I'm going to I am going to put this in for about three more minutes. That last poke of the open crack confirmed Rene's suspicion. It felt too wet and she left an impression in the bread with her finger. She knew that it had to go back in the oven. Yep. I think that needs a little bit more time. Okay. Hey, that looks much better. That's dry on the top. Let's see how this is looking. Perfect. So, when I test this, I'm looking for this to come out clean. And that has come out completely clean. And you don't want anything on it. a crumb or here or there, but that's a crumb, not a not wet. So, if you poke this inside that and it comes out with goop lining down like that, you know it's not done. Okay. So, this is it's pulled away from the edge. It's pushing. When I push down on it, it's bouncing back. And the key here is that this looks dry. When I took it out the first time, it looked a little bit wet. You don't want that to look wet. Um, this is perfect. It's just beautiful and it smells so good in here.
So, now we're going to let that sit for 10 minutes and we'll take it out of the pan and then we'll let it cool off a little bit before we cut it because that's another big no no with banana bread. We rarely get to that point where we don't cut it immediately. But you're supposed to leave it so that it continues cooking while it's cooling. So, we will be back in about 10 minutes. Okay. So, we're going to take this out of the pan now and then let it sit and cool. And if I've done this right, and because it's pulled away, I'm quite certain that it's it's going to come right out of the pan. If you feel insecure about that, run a knife down the sides. I'll show you. Well, let's just see if it comes out first. Yep, there it is. It's perfect. Brown. Nicely browned on the bottom. It's a beautiful loaf of bread. It's very important to not cut this open at this point. We have a very hard time in my house protecting this loaf of banana banana bread. You just want this heat to dissipate and then cut it or it's going to get gummy and all of the moisture is going to rise up into the air. This way it's being protected and it's it gets better and better. I do feel your pain if you do cut it, but and it still tastes great. But we should not cut this bread yet. No, no, no, no, no. Don't, do not.
Okay, so this has cooled off quite a bit. It's still a little bit warm, but it's time to cut it. I'm going to use this knife because I feel like the serrated edge knife pulls on that. So, let's just give this a try and see what this looks like inside. Oh my gosh, that looks perfect. See the inside of that? That's a nice texture. Oh, it's Oh, it Oh, it feels perfect. I'm going to cut another piece so you can see both sides of that. [Music] That is just [Music] gorgeous. Oh, it smells so good. I'm going to give this a little taste. Normally, I would slather butter on this, but we're just going to taste it as it is. There. Looks so good. [Music] This is the best banana bread ever. It is It's moist and there is so much flavor in here. The the nuts and the amount of banana in this recipe, it is so good. I hope you make this. It is just I mean banana bread is banana bread is banana bread, but this is banana bread. This is really good.
So, a nice thing about this is if you want to make two loaves at the same time, double the recipe. Um, you can actually freeze this. And if I were to freeze this, I wouldn't cut it first of all. I would wrap it first after it was completely cool. I would wrap it in tin foil and then I would put it in a freezer safe container or baggie and put it in the freezer like that. The tin foil helps keep it from getting freezer burned, but it freezes great. Probably a couple of months. And don't forget to subscribe. [Laughter] Boy oh boy, didn't Rene's banana bread look great. Anyway, we've got lots more videos out there for you to check out. So, until next time, thank you.