Buttermilk Banana Bread

I have been contemplating making buttermilk pound cake for a few weeks now.  The idea came from a pint of roasted strawberry buttermilk ice cream I picked up a few weeks ago.  When I saw the ice cream the idea of buttermilk pound cake just kind of popped into my head.  I was thinking we could grill up slices of the pound cake and top with some strawberry buttermilk ice cream and some nice fresh mint.  It sounded like a brilliant idea.  Only I didn't have lemon extract or enough sugar or butter to make the pound cake.  Nor did I have a bundt pan.  And I'm sure I could have used a different assortment of pans to approximate the size of a bundt pan (two loaf pans perhaps), but the lack of ingredients wasn't something I could fix without another trip to the grocery store.  And I was past my grocery store quota for the weekend.  And once I remembered that I had three overripe bananas in the apartment I abandoned that plan and decided to make buttermilk banana bread.  I thought about making up my own recipe, but decided to be a little lazy and find some recipes online.  This recipe seemed like a good starting point.  I was going to add chocolate chips and other ingredients, but Alex made fun of me for my inability to make a simple loaf of banana bread.  So I stuck very closely to the recipe.  The flavor here is very light and pleasant - and when I say light, I mean that the banana flavor doesn't really jump out at you.  That could be the fault of the bananas - they were properly overripe, but some bananas are just more flavorful than others.  And I didn't mind the lack of concentrated banana flavor.  What really threw me was that the texture was a little spongy and dense.  It was almost too moist.  You can actually see how dense it is in the photo.  Maybe we pulled it out of the oven a minute or two early, although the toothpick came out clean.  I prefer my banana bread, zucchini bread and pumpkin bread to be a little fluffier than this, which generally (although not always) means that your bread is a little less moist.  I'm glad that I didn't add any chocolate chips or nuts to this recipe because I think that would have resulted in an even more dense loaf.  Next up, buttermilk pound cake!

Recipe after the jump!




Buttermilk Banana Bread
Adapted from Two Peas and Their Pod

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
3 medium overripe bananas
4 tbsp buttermilk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp ground allspice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
 
Butter and flour a standard loaf pan.  Tap to remove excess flour.  Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar together.  Add eggs, bananas, buttermilk, and vanilla.  Beat on low speed until the batter is well mixed.

Add in the flour, baking powder, salt and soda.  Mix until well combined.  Pour batter into prepared pan and bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 50-55 minutes.

Allow to cool completely.