bananas

Dominique Ansel’s Banana Bread

01.21.2017 by J. Doe // 10 Comments

My friend Toby over at Plate Fodder suffers from a dire affliction: He has an advanced case of Food Fad Fatigue.

I relate. I spent New Year’s Day canceling email subscriptions and unliking Facebook pages of food magazines and newsletters I once enjoyed. Goodbye Bon Appetit, goodbye Tasting Table. I think they’ll miss me about as much as I’ll miss them, which is to say, not at all. It’s been quite a long time since I read any of their posts, mostly because what I want is dinner, while what they are trying to do is entice me to try something trendy and inedible.

Please click, they beg repeatedly, but I don’t want to and eventually I get tired of being asked. Unlike, unfollow, breathe deeply and exhale.

Toby’s approach is less passive than mine; he’s threatening to write a book called Quinoa, Kale, and 50 Other Foods that Taste Like Ass. He wants to know if I’d buy a copy, and the answer is, of course I would, and not just because he’s a friend. I refuse to eat things just Because They’re Healthy. I like to eat healthy things that taste good.

The food faddists are rapidly ruining those, too. I like cauliflower; in fact, I love the stuff, as does The Child. But somewhere along the line, cauliflower became a substitute for carbohydrates (cauliflower rice, anyone?), and somewhere after that, someone decided it was also a good substitute for lime sherbet. I’m joking, but only a little. The PBS blogger who wrote that article, oddly, appears to be serious.

Also being serious is the blogger who gave us Frambled Eggs, a post that Epicurious, in a cruel jab at people with some knowledge of basic culinary skills – not to mention, good food – filed under “Expert Advice.” If rubbery eggs are your thing, then by all means, use his technique. Bon appetit!

I feel like I’m in a small minority that is getting smaller every day. I went to an actual bookstore not long ago (remember those?), and spent some time checking out the cookbooks. Pioneer Woman? Check. The Minimalist Baker? Check. In fact, there were lots of pretty cookbooks by familiar food blogger names, while actual cookbooks by trained chefs (Dorie Greenspan, Mario Batali) were in somewhat short supply. No, the cookbook section in question was not a small one.

Turmeric may well have healthy properties, but that doesn’t mean anyone can or should eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, even if one truly believes it is sourced from the Fountain of Youth. Given its increasingly frequent appearance in recipes and food blogs, it must be. But if I die an early death, will it be because the only bottle of turmeric I’ve ever owned has never been opened and dates to the pre-barcode era?

I’m willing to take that risk, and opt for a bit of cumin, or oregano, or some variety. Variety, I hear, is the spice of life. Not turmeric.

Another minority I belong to: American Citizens Against Zoodles. I’ve never used a spiralizer, and I’ve never eaten a zoodle. As much as I like zucchini, it isn’t a substitute for spaghetti, and at my house, never will be. If I want to be hungry an hour after I eat dinner, I’ll order Chinese food. It’s much less work.

I love to see classic recipes improved upon, and there are many good reasons to do this, such as simplifying a technique or using ingredients for that can be found easily by a home cook. This is not the same thing as throwing a new ingredient into an old classic and pretending it’s a wonderful, modern update. The world needs both dill pickles and chicken piccata, but it most assuredly does not need a recipe for Dill Pickle Chicken Piccata (something Toby swears he saw the other day but which Google, in its merciful and infinite wisdom, refuses to find for me).

My cookbooks aren’t full of pretty pictures of recipes that don’t work, so they don’t live on the coffee table next to a stack of pristine copies of Architectural Digest. Instead, my cookbooks live in the kitchen and sometimes find their way back to the shelves, usually when I run out of counter space, or back to the library, usually when one been overdue for so long that the library stops sending email notices (which I never see in all the email I receive) and starts sending actual letters (which I always see and am still kind of thrilled to get).

Yes, there is a point to all this, and I hope you will appreciate the irony.

One of the last Facebook posts I saw from Tasting Table was a banana bread recipe by Dominique Ansel, a name you might recognize as the man who gave us one of the largest food fads of recent memory, the Cronut. The banana bread recipe was accompanied by Tasting Table’s standard, overly effusive praise – Ansel took something that, when made by mere mortals, is “pretty good,” and turned it into an “insanely good … delectable treat,” rescuing overripe bananas from a terrible fate at the same time.

I’m always skeptical when someone is presented as a culinary Superman, but as it happens, I had four embarrassingly overripe bananas (I wish the grocery store would send me mail about that, just once), and as luck would have it, when I looked up the recipe, it called for … four overripe bananas. I haven’t had a good kitchen disaster in a while, so I gave it a try, fully expecting my beloved Fannie Farmer standby to win the day.

She didn’t.

I’d like to say I’m sad about that, and of course part of me is, but the other part of me was too happy about eating a joyfully moist cake with a rich banana flavor and a heady dose of nutmeg, and did I mention the butter? Yes, it was there, and lots of it. And while these things are all wonderful, they are not the most wonderful thing about this banana bread. That honor goes to the thick, sweet, caramelized, crunchy top crust that forms as this giant loaf bakes.

It is, in a word, magical.

Here, dear reader, is my point: Life is complicated, but good food is really quite simple.

Go enjoy some.

Dominique Ansel's Banana Bread

Author: Dominique Ansel via Tasting Table

Ingredients

2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
¾ tsp baking soda
¾ tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
4 overripe bananas
14 tbsp unsalted butter, melted, plus more for greasing pan

Instructions

Grease a large loaf pan, and set aside. Preheat oven to 350°.
In a large bowl, combine the sugar, flour, baking soda, nutmeg, salt and baking powder. In a separate bowl, mash the bananas thoroughly, then crack the eggs in and combine. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and mix together. Stir in the melted butter until fully incorporated.
Pour the batter into prepared loaf pan and bake until golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean, about 1 hour and 10 minutes, depending on how cooperative your oven is.
Allow to cool for 20 minutes before slicing.

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Macrina Bakery’s Rocket Muffins

03.05.2015 by J. Doe // Leave a Comment

For the past few summers, The Child and I have been tormented by unwanted guests. Not the rats that occasionally move into the crawl space, silent and unseen. Not the moles, which are visually destructive, but silent, and at least provide some marginal comic relief, in the form of neighbors doing Bill Murray In Caddyshack impressions.

The bees, on the other hand, we can hear, and they’re loud: They buzz aggressively on the other side of my office wall, and The Child’s bedroom wall.

Last summer, I hired a bee guy, who couldn’t locate them easily, but based on an inspection of the outside of the house, informed me that my noisy neighbors were “probably” mud daubers. They are tiny and harmless wasps, he said. Probably coming in through the vent screens. I suggest you wait until winter, when they go dormant, and replace the screens.

He took my check and was on his way.

With winter almost over – at least in Seattle – my thoughts turned to Spring, and I called my handyman, who stopped by and inspected the crawl space next to my office, and the one next to The Child’s room, and then the attic area; he found nothing. He moved his ladder outside, and climbed onto the garage roof, and inspected the wall. Eventually he climbed down, and said he’d found two warped siding boards: The gaps are how the bees were getting in, he said. Your screens are fine.

Then he handed me his phone, to show me the pictures he’d taken of the furnace vent, specifically, the holes that had rusted out of it. He went into the attic again, and came back with more pictures: more rusty holes. I stare at the pictures like the inadequately knowledgeable homeowner I am.

Those holes will vent carbon monoxide into your attic, he tells me.

I listened to the sound of the mud dauber wasps in my wall all summer, several years in a row, and they frightened me, but could never have hurt me. It would seem I owe them a debt of gratitude, since they led to the discovery of a very real danger that I could have neither seen nor heard. I am grateful to the wasps, as I stand on a ladder, trying to help the handyman loosen rusted pieces of vent pipe. I am grateful to the wasps as I make a note on the grocery list to replace the batteries in the smoke detectors, including the one that kept going off, with no obvious cause, a year or so ago.

I am grateful to the wasps as the handyman nails down the siding, closing off their entrance to my wall.

When the handyman leaves, I lock the back gate after him, and notice that my rhubarb is coming in, and not just a little. I’m absurdly happy: The sun is shining, The Child and I aren’t going to die in our sleep, and there will be rhubarb, soon. Spring is coming; it’s almost here.

There isn’t much in the way of in-season produce that I actually want to eat at the stores, but late last summer I received a small bag of Oregon hazelnuts as a gift, and thought that now would be a good time to use them. I wanted cookies and cakes but since I also had yet another mushy banana to use up – just one this time – I chose a recipe from the Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook that included hazelnuts, a ripe banana, and other things I already had on hand: carrots, molasses. The ingredient list sounded like a healthy way to start a day, and the name – Rocket Muffins – suggested they’d kick-start me with energy.

One thing I didn’t have on hand was whole wheat flour, and since I was feeling kind of lazy, and thus in need of a muffin to kick-start my energy level, I swapped in some dark rye flour to see what would happen. The original recipe also calls for adding a dollop of jam to the top of each muffin during baking, which I skipped entirely, figuring I’d rather add whatever flavor jam I felt like eating at the time I ate each muffin.

I don’t know how these are supposed to taste, and to be honest, when they first came out of the oven, they reminded me of the supposedly healthy “bread” that was the bane of my 1970s school lunches. A liberal dose of melting salted butter did not help matters much.

I set the muffins aside, but vowed I would finish them – all of them – no matter how much jam it took.

The next morning, I was running late, so I grabbed one of the muffins, and ate it at my desk as I began work: No jam, no butter.

It was stupendous.

It’s hard to appreciate a muffin that isn’t sweet, when muffins, for the most part these days, are simply small cakes pretending to be muffins. But when you stop expecting something to be sweet, and when there is no sweetness to overwhelm the flavors, well, you can really taste them. The delicious crunchy, nutty hazelnut was shown off superbly by the earthy rye and molasses; the buttermilk probably accounts for the muffins’ ethereal lightness.

They don’t need jam or butter or to be toasted or anything, except to be eaten.

And the best part: The Child doesn’t like them, so I get them all to myself.

Macrina Bakery's Rocket Muffins

Author: adapted from Leslie Mackie, Macrina Bakery Cookbook

Ingredients

¾ cup hazelnuts, toasted, chopped
¾ cup all purpose flour
¾ cup dark rye flour
2 tbsp light brown sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
2½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1½ cup rolled oats
3 medium carrots, grated
1 small, ripe banana, mashed or pureed
2 eggs
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup molasses
½ cup buttermilk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F. Spread hazelnuts out on a baking sheet and roast until they're golden brown and fragrant (about 15 minutes). Cool slightly and remove the skins by rubbing nuts together in a clean dish towel. Chop coarsely and set aside.
Whisk the flours, brown sugar, baking powder and soda, and salt together in a large bowl. Add the oats, nuts, and carrots; toss together with a spoon or your hands until the carrots are well coated with flour.
In a medium bowl, beat the eggs. Whisk in the banana, oil, molasses, and buttermilk until thoroughly combined.
Add the liquid mixture to the dry mixture, stirring with a fork until the batter just starts to come together.
Spoon the batter into a paper liners in a muffin tin, filling the cups to the top. Bake until the muffins are deep brown and spring back when pressed lightly with a finger, 15-20 minutes. Cool on racks.

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Banana Malt Ice Cream

02.26.2015 by J. Doe // 2 Comments

The rest of the country has been buried under snow, but in Seattle, spring came early, and suddenly – unexpectedly. February itself had enough of the dark and gloom, and that was that: Crocuses appeared along with the sun, and the Red Dog and I started taking longer and longer walks in the midday sun. Some days, I don’t even bother wearing a jacket.

My East Coast coworkers email updates about weather-related transportation delays, while my Facebook friends post videos of snow falling and updates about school closures, and everyone grumbles at my replies: 55 and sunny here!

I know that makes me sound like an awful person, or at least a bit irritating, but turnabout is fair play – every time a Seattle resident complains about bad weather to a non-Seattle resident, they receive this reply: I don’t know why you live there. I couldn’t stand the weather.

Usually, of course, they’re right. This is the one time in the history of everything that Seattle has had better weather than the rest of the country. Let us enjoy it. It isn’t likely to happen again.

It’s not quite warm enough for the garden to begin growing, but I optimistically start some seedlings. This year, I will have fresh vegetables; this year, my garden will grow. I’ve got some waiting to do, for the garden, and the farmer’s market. In the meantime, we eat frozen strawberries from Costco and frozen blackberries we picked last August, and when we think of it, fresh bananas from the store.

You know the bananas I mean: The wallflowers of the kitchen; the ones that turn brown waiting for us to remember them, notice them, invite them to dine with us. This last bunch turned a very depressed shade of brown, waiting, but I just wasn’t feeling it – not the bananas, nor the banana bread, nor even the banana cake. Spring arrived, and all I want is More Spring. Spring On A Plate. Spring In A Bowl.

Then, something magical happened – as magical as unexpected sunshine in Seattle.

I found a copy of Karen DeMasco’s The Craft of Baking at the local library, and checked it out, since I’ve enjoyed some of her recipes (Spicy Caramel Corn and Granola Jam Bars) in the past. I opened the pages to a recipe for Banana Malt Ice Cream – a most unexpected thing to find in a baking book – but, more importantly, it called for ripe, pureed bananas, something I just happened to have three of.

I had to do a little driving to make it happen – not being snowed in, I can do that – as the recipe calls for malt syrup, which isn’t something I keep on hand, but fortunately I had no trouble finding it at the local PCC, and DeMasco offered a substitute in case I couldn’t (malt powder or ovaltine). The custard is simple enough to make, just remember to leave time to chill it before putting it in the ice cream maker.

I found this made a little much for my ice cream maker, which overflowed toward the end of the cycle, just after I stopped watching it like a hawk. This may have been my fault, though, as I got some extra-large eggs and so there was probably more yolk than there was supposed to be.

Which is fine by me, because that means there’s also more delicious ice cream, and it is so delicious: the malt flavor intensifies the natural banana flavor, yet both are smooth and mellow in the frozen custard. It doesn’t need anything else, but you could toss in some chocolate chips or chunks if you wanted some texture (or, you know, chocolate).

The Child looked at me as though I had lost my mind when I offered her some banana ice cream; then she took a taste and cried out with joy and scooped herself a big bowl.

When I went looking for my next helping a day or so later, the ice cream was more than half gone.

Banana Malt Ice Cream

Author: adapted from Karen DeMasco, The Craft of Baking

Ingredients

5 large egg yolks
1 cup barley malt syrup
½ cup plus 3 tbsp sugar
1½ cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
½ vanilla bean, split
½ tsp salt
2 very ripe bananas (to yield about 1 cup pureed banana)

Instructions

In a large bowl, whisk together egg yolks, barley malt syrup, and about half the sugar.
In a medium saucepan, whisk together the rest of the sugar, milk, cream, and vanilla bean. Bring to a boil, whisking frequently, and when the mixture begins to rise in the pan, remove from the heat.
Add the the milk mixture to the egg mixture in a thin stream, whisking constantly. Whisk in the salt.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate 8 hours or overnight.
Mash the bananas thoroughly (or puree in a blender or food processor), then whisk into the chilled custard.
Freeze the custard in an ice cream maker, following the manufacturer's instructions.

Notes

You can find Barley Malt Syrup at stores like Whole Foods and PCC. DeMasco suggests you can substitute ovaltine or another malt powder if you can't find it.

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Dominique Ansel’s Banana Bread

Macrina Bakery’s Rocket Muffins

Banana Malt Ice Cream

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