It Always Leads To Banana Bread

Tackling the age old question: what to do with ripe bananas?

When bananas turn brown on the counter, I always imagine I’ll do something absolutely fabulous with them. Maybe I’ll make a… THING… or… THAT RECIPE I READ ONCE… or… or… banana bread. Of course banana bread. It always leads to banana bread.

My experience with banana-based recipes is that when I find one that’s interesting, it always calls for bananas that are “very ripe" and of course I never have ripe bananas on hand. But then when I do have ripe bananas ready to go, I can never find the interesting recipe I wanted to try. One might think the best plan would be to bookmark a recipe, procure some bananas, and then wait 5 days to make whatever it was that got my attention. Sure. Makes sense. I’ll never do it.

I mean, of COURSE I would do it for the right recipe. But a lot of times, I buy bananas with the intent of snacking on them, and then inevitably I’m stuck with three or four brown, ripe ones by the end of the week. There has to be a better life for them beyond banana bread, right?

Well, recently I had a lot of bananas around; so I made a bunch of banana things. Here’s what I made in an effort to change up the ol’ banana bread rut.

Banana Muffins

My go-to banana muffin recipe for years upon years has been Ina Garten’s terrific banana crunch muffins. They are perfect, I adore them, end of story.

However, Ina’s muffins have some special asks: coconut, granola, and walnuts. These are not exotic ingredients, but they weren’t on hand when I suddenly decided to make muffins at midnight recently (I thought it would be a cute morning surprise for my boyfriend).

In fact, I didn’t have many ingredients at all, but I did have enough to make Amanda Rettke’s “Banana Banana Muffins,” which are basically just very simple banana muffins with some sliced bananas on top. I actually didn’t even have enough bananas to do the topping. So, I guess these were just “Banana Banana Muffins.”

This batter comes together in a heartbeat. There’s nothing very wild going on beyond some mashed bananas and melted butter, which both get added to pantry staples like flour and sugar and vanilla extract. 18 minutes later in the oven (or toaster oven, in my case), and you’ve got fresh muffins.

This was a delightful discovery. I really appreciated the simplicity of the recipe and the clarity of flavor. Sometimes when eating a banana muffin, I just want to taste banana, butter, and not much else. These muffins gave me that.

Unlike Ina’s banana crunch muffins with their perfectly muffin-toppy muffin tops, Rettke’s muffins are squat, barely even cresting past their foil wrappers. Some might even argue that these muffins are in fact topless. Sexy! This is all to say that the muffins are practically bite sized, which I enjoyed because a) cuteness and b) I didn’t feel so guilty every time I walked by the kitchen and snuck one into my mouth.

Ina’s will always be #1, but how lovely to have a back pocket, every day muffin in the quiver. Here a link.

Banana Mocha Cake

Yossy Arefi’s Snacking Cakes is one of my most thoroughly used cookbooks of all time; so, naturally when her sequel, Snacking Bakes, dropped last year, I was eager to test out some recipes. Fortunately for the sake of this column, Arefi has a mocha banana cake that doesn’t advertise itself as vegan, but guess what? It’s vegan.

I’m down for vegan baking. In theory. Almost every vegan baked good I’ve made has been fine but never thrilling. I was hoping this cake would buck the trend.

Instead of milk or cream, this cake calls for “unsweetened nondairy milk, any kind.” I had some almond milk in the fridge; so almond milk it was. We then employ some very ripe bananas, cocoa powder, neutral oil, and apple cider vinegar (as well as the usual cake culprits).

Topped with a mocha glaze made with more almond milk, nondairy butter, cocoa, powdered sugar, and espresso powder, the cake looked dark and brooding. I couldn’t wait to jump in.

Unfortunately, this was not a home run. Maybe a single? A walk? A balk?

This cake fell into the trap that many vegan cakes fall into: being perfectly nice for a vegan cake. I wanted more chocolate, I wanted more banana, I wanted more fat, I wanted more sweet, and I wanted more coffee (the mocha of it all only exists in the glaze, which feels like a waste). I am an ardent chocoholic; so I definitely ate my fair share of this cake, but not as quickly as Arefi’s other, significantly more successful cakes. Still, it paired very nicely with a glass of cold brew, and one really can’t be mad at that.

If you should find yourself with ripe bananas, I’m not sure this is the best use for them.

For what it’s worth, David Lebovitz has an excellent banana mocha cake recipe that I didn’t make only because it’s more of an effort. However, I’ve made it in the past, and it’s a true splendor. Lebovitz also has several banana-based recipes on his website. I definitely should have investigated them before writing this column.

Banana Bars

Back when I used to blog (as opposed to write newsletters - BIG difference), I solicited recipes for a baking contest. The winner was a woman named Maureen who submitted Frosted Banana Bars from Taste of Home. I remembered these bars being absolutely delicious, thanks in part to the thick layer of cream cheese frosting spackled on top.

Protip: if you ever want to win a baking contest, spackle cream cheese frosting on top of whatever you’re making.

Well, it had been years since I last made the bars, which btw, are not actually bars: this recipe instead yields a big ol’ cake that you slice into “bars.” So basically, it’s banana sheet cake. Anyway, the point is that with some extra bananas lying around, I decided to dust off this classic.

Something I didn’t remember from twelve years ago: the sheer amount of sugar that goes into this recipe. The sponge takes two cups, which is a lot, but it was the four cups of powdered sugar in the frosting that really halted me. Good God.

Unsurprisingly, these banana bars, er, cake, were wildly sweet. But also intoxicatingly good. But sweet. Despite that, everyone seemed to lose their minds for them. I’m talking rave reviews across the board. I think it’s that dang frosting. It has four cups of sugar in it because it yields so much, and that leads to a massive layer of frosting atop the bars. What this means is a wonderfully intense frosting-to-cake ratio per bite, and people really respond to that. I know I did.

Still, despite all this, the rampant sweetness pulled me away from the banana, leaving these bars as a bit one-note. Perfect for a casual bake sale, but not what I’m looking for as a go-to banana option.

Banana Bread

Because it always comes back to banana bread. Try as I may, I cannot escape the clutches of banana bread. Why would I? It’s literally fantastic.

In 2019, I went to Maui and drove along the famed Road to Hana. Along the way I made a detour to Aunt Sandy’s Banana Bread, which I had learned was THE banana bread. Let me tell you something: it was. Dense and moist with butter and banana, it is now the standard against which I judge all banana breads.

That is to say, I’ve made many banana breads, but none have really come close to that glorious mini loaf I ate in Hawaii.

Enter Toni Tipton-Martin’s Island Banana Bread from the cookbook Jubilee. This recipe hails from the Caribbean, and with its mix of dates, pecans, brown sugar, molasses, buttermilk, and a variety of warming spices, it’s nothing like the bright yellow bread I purchased in Maui. And yet, my goodness, this may have been the best banana bread I’ve made or tasted since then.

The butter comes through splendidly, despite having “only” one stick, and the sweetness of the bananas gets a nice boost from the chopped dates floating through the loaf. But it’s the complex flavors of molasses, nutmeg, ginger, and cinnamon that push this banana bread into a special place. Funny, I just extolled the virtues of an unfussy banana muffin, and yet here, the layers of flavor are the selling point. I guess I’m just fickle.

In the end, despite attempts to use bananas inventively, it was banana bread that stole the show. It’s a classic for a reason. I’ll continue to seek out unique recipes for bananas — I’ve got my eye on some ice cream options — but for now, if I have some ripe ones hanging out in the kitchen, I’m probably just going to make Toni Tipton-Martin’s Island Banana Bread again. And again. And again.

What’s your favorite use for brown bananas?