Yesterday was gray, gloomy and cold. In other words, it was the perfect day to fire up the oven and bake for the first time since the Spring. What better way to kick off the “finally feel like using the oven again” season then to make an old favorite, beer banana bread? I’ve made it a couple of times before, with different beers and different recipe tweaks, but I’ve got a feeling that this is the year I finally perfect it.
To kick off the season, I used a very special beer for the batter: a 2008 Goose Island Bourbon County Stout, one of my favorite beers ever made. The recipe I used was as follows:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup demerara cane sugar
1/3 cup butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon bourbon vanilla
3 mashed bananas
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
and the coup de grace, 1 cup of Goose Island Bourbon County Stout
Come and follow me through a visual kitchen odyssey in search of the perfect banana bread.
Getting the ingredients ready to go.
Can't cook without libations. Tonight's choice: Great Divide 16th Anniversary Wood Aged Double IPA.
The dry ingredients minus sugar (flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt) are set.
Creaming the butter and sugar. The demerera sugar is coarse so it'll take a while.
Mashing bananas. Riper bananas would have been better, but I was impatient.
Bananas, butter, sugar and vanilla are combined. All that's left is the coup de grace.
After I made a well in the dry ingredients, it's time to pour the liquid mixture in.
Since I didn't have a 5-year-old on hand, I had to mix it myself. Make sure to use a folding motion (get those air bubbles in there), and DON'T OVERMIX.
Get that batter into a nicely greased pan.
Soon it'll be a beautiful loaf. I swear.
The advantage of being the photographer? Cleaning the pan.
The advantage of being the cook? Cleaning the Bourbon County Stout bottle.
See? Told you it would look beautiful!
The advantage of sitting there and begging while I'm trying to cook? Very little.
So, how was the banana bread? Pretty damn good. I was a little nervous after sampling the batter that the beer would completely overwhelm everything else. After an hour in the oven, that fear proved unfounded. I don’t like my banana bread to be super sweet, so with the sugar in the background the bourbon flavor is definitely discernible. It wasn’t the perfect loaf (the one I made last year with Brooklyn’s Black Chocolate Stout may be the closest I ever get), but it was another winner that will be great breakfast for the next couple of days (if it lasts that long).
New York Ale Project 