Walnut Banana Bread

Name: Walnut Banana Bread
Total time: 80 min
Yield: 8
Ingredients: 2 unit banana (very ripe, mashed); 1 cup flour, all-purpose; ½ cup brown sugar (packed); 4 tbsp butter (melted, cooled); 1 unit egg (beaten); ½ tsp baking soda; ¼ tsp salt; 1 tsp vanilla (extract); ⅓ cup walnuts (chopped, toasted)

Breads & Baking · American

A variant of Banana Bread — The reference loaf with its authored walnut addition made part of the recipe.

9 ingredients · 80 minutes · 8 servings

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Contains gluten, dairy, egg, tree nut

Restrictions

Containsgluten · dairy · egg · tree nutIt is in an ingredient you cannot leave out.

Diets

VegetarianPescatarianNo porkNo alcohol · check

Worked out from the ingredient list. It knows nothing about brands, shared equipment or cross contamination, and it is not a certification — if you have an allergy, you still have to read the label.

Ingredients

Servings:

2 unit	banana (very ripe, mashed)
1 cup	flour, all-purpose
½ cup	brown sugar (packed)
4 tbsp	butter (melted, cooled)
1 unit	egg (beaten)
½ tsp	baking soda
¼ tsp	salt
1 tsp	vanilla (extract)
⅓ cup	walnuts (chopped, toasted)

Optional

Not counted above. The dish works without them.

2 tbsp	sour cream
½ tsp	cinnamon (ground)

Steps

prep5 min
oven 350°F / 175°C
heat the oven and butter an 8x4 loaf pan — a small deep pan, not a wide one, because the loaf needs to rise on gluten and steam before the crust sets
mash3 min
room temperature
banana, to a lumpy paste with a fork. Use fruit that is black-spotted and soft: the starch has already converted to sugar, so it sweetens and thins the batter at once. Firm yellow bananas give a bland, dry loaf and no amount of sugar fixes it
whisk2 min
off heat
melted butter + brown sugar + egg + vanilla + mashed banana, until glossy. Let the butter cool below body temperature first or it will begin to set the egg into threads
mix1 min
separate bowl
flour + baking soda + salt, dispersed evenly. The soda needs the banana's acid to leaven; any pocket left undistributed shows up as a bitter grey streak
fold2 min
by hand, minimal strokes
wet + dry + walnuts, stopping while a few floury patches remain. Every extra stroke develops gluten, and developed gluten in a quick bread means long vertical tunnels, a domed crack, and a gummy chew For this walnut version, fold in the full listed quantity of toasted chopped walnuts with the final strokes.
bake55 min
350°F / 175°C, center rack
batter in the pan, until a skewer in the middle comes out with crumbs but no wet batter and the top has split along its length. The split is normal — the crust sets before the interior finishes expanding
rest15 min
in pan, then on a rack
the loaf, before slicing. The crumb is still setting; cut hot and the starch has not finished retrograding, so the knife drags it into a dense smear