I recently bought a copy of The New Way to Cake by Benjamina Ebuehi (if you don't watch The Great British Baking Show, she was on the seventh season), and the book is a relatively slim paperback volume. My first recipe selection from the cookbook was an easy choice because of the bunch of overripe bananas sitting in my fruit bowl: peanut butter banana bread. This recipe also happens to be vegan, but I used regular milk instead of the specified almond or soy milk because I don't keep plant-based milks on hand.
The recipe couldn't be easier. You combine the wet ingredients (mashed bananas, creamy peanut butter, oil, milk, and vanilla) in one bowl; combine the dry ingredients (flour, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt -- and I also added the suggested optional chopped peanuts) in another; and mix the wet into the dry. You pour the batter into a parchment-lined loaf pan and top it with another banana sliced in half lengthwise before baking.
I used a 9-inch by 5-inch pan because that's the equivalent of the 2-pound loaf pan the recipe calls for. However, the loaf in the cookbook photo is long and slender, like a Pullman loaf (the cookbook photo is the same one that appears alongside this online version of the recipe). The fact that my loaf pan was so much wider might explain why I had to bake my bread for 80 minutes, instead of the 45-50 minutes specified.
The bread was dense and slightly rubbery. I don't know if this texture was the result of the recipe not containing any eggs, but I didn't love it. While the flavor of the loaf was good -- you could clearly taste both the peanut butter and the bananas -- the heavy texture was not appealing. My favorite part of the loaf was the crunch of the chopped peanuts that I had added to the batter.
I'm not sure if the texture is inherent to the recipe, or if it was the result of having to bake the loaf for so long. As you can see in the photo above, the outside crust of the loaf was very dark and substantial from the long baking time. It's possible that baking this bread in a larger pan for a shorter amount of time would product a better result. But I have to say that I prefer the flavor of straight banana bread to the combination of peanut butter and banana in a loaf like this. And to me, one of the best parts of banana bread is the soft, tender texture. While this bread was not exactly my cup of tea, I'm looking forward to trying more of the creative recipes from this cookbook!
Recipe: "Peanut Butter Banana Bread" from The New Way to Cake by Benjamina Ebuehi, recipe available here from The San Diego Union-Tribune.
The recipe couldn't be easier. You combine the wet ingredients (mashed bananas, creamy peanut butter, oil, milk, and vanilla) in one bowl; combine the dry ingredients (flour, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt -- and I also added the suggested optional chopped peanuts) in another; and mix the wet into the dry. You pour the batter into a parchment-lined loaf pan and top it with another banana sliced in half lengthwise before baking.
I used a 9-inch by 5-inch pan because that's the equivalent of the 2-pound loaf pan the recipe calls for. However, the loaf in the cookbook photo is long and slender, like a Pullman loaf (the cookbook photo is the same one that appears alongside this online version of the recipe). The fact that my loaf pan was so much wider might explain why I had to bake my bread for 80 minutes, instead of the 45-50 minutes specified.
Recipe: "Peanut Butter Banana Bread" from The New Way to Cake by Benjamina Ebuehi, recipe available here from The San Diego Union-Tribune.
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