Banana Tea Bread

On to our second recipe of the day... Banana Tea Bread. I have a recipe that is my favorite one that comes from an old copy of The New York Times Natural Foods Cookbook by Jean Hewitt that my mother has (it is NOT in the "New" version, copyright 1982) and so trying a new recipe is quite a change for me :) But this version is a good, solid banana bread, very basic and moist. It is also from the Pennsylvania Dutch cookbook mentioned in my previous post,



Again, in this recipe I substituted whole wheat flour for part of the white flour (1 cup white, 3/4 cup wheat) and I chose to use butter for the "fat" called for in the recipe. I also did not measure the bananas but have found in the past that 4 large bananas are about 1 cup mashed.

The Recipe:
Banana Tea Bread

1 3/4 cup flour

1/3 cup fat

3/4 tsp soda

2/3 cup sugar

1 1/4 tsp cream of tartar

2 eggs

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup mashed bananas

Sift the flour, salt, soda and cream of tartar together.

Beat the fat until creamy and then add sugar gradually.

Add eggs and beat well.

Add dry ingredients alternately with crushed bananas.

When well blended, pour batter into a greased loaf pan, 8x4x3 inches.

Bake at 350F for 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Cut in squares and serve cold.

Mrs. Frank Raber, Detroit, Mich.

So here are the ingredients I used. Note the very ripe bananas:




I creamed the butter and sugar together for a good 2 minutes before adding the eggs. This helps the fluffiness of the batter, which is doubly important in things that are normally dense, like banana bread. Then, make sure not to overbeat the batter once all the flour and bananas are incorporated. Just beat enough to make sure it's well mixed, but don't go too long or your bread will be tough from the gluten buildup in the flour. I baked my banana bread in my Pamper Chef stonewear loaf pan which I adore. Here's a photo of the bread as I slid it into my convection oven:



Having an extra small oven was very helpful today with all the other baking I was doing but remember when you cook on convection mode to lower the temperature by 25 degrees. So I baked this at 325F rather than the 350F mentioned in the recipe. And here is the final results:



As I mentioned, this is a very good, dense, bread, although I'll honestly say I prefer my other recipe. This one would be great for times when I wanted a more plain bread or for those who don't like nuts in their bread. It is very good and my daughter, who LOVES bananas, loved it as well. Since she's not old enough for nuts, I may have to continue making this recipe for her at least for a while :)

Let me know if you try the recipe and what you think of it!