Nutty Cardamom Banana Bread
I am awfully optimistic when it comes to bananas. I buy them with the best of intentions, meaning to eat them in moments of health and activity, and then forget, allowing them to age to the point where they smell alcoholic. There is a point between this stage and “rotten”, and this is the moment for banana bread.
Two things make this bread special: brown butter and cardamom. The brown butter ups the Maillard factor considerably, and cardamom is the natural bosom companion of bananas.
FACTOIDS:
• A banana is a berry. It is.
• The bananas we eat now in America are all Cavendish bananas, which is kind of a shame, because the bananas we used to get (“Gran Michel” bananas) were supposedly better. This is the banana from which “banana” flavoring was derived. The shortage of those bananas inspired this classic song.
• Bananas are slightly radioactive.
• All Cavendish bananas are clones.
INGREDIENTS
Makes 1 loaf
• Unsalted butter, for greasing
• Sprinkle of flour for nuts
• 1½cups/190 g all-purpose flour
• 1 cup/150 g granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 cup mashed ripe bananas (from 2 to 3 medium bananas)
• 8 tbsp /114 g butter, melted and browned
• ¼cup/60 ml honey
• 1 1/2 tsps ground cardamom
• Pinch of nutmeg
• 2 large eggs
• ¼cup/60 ml warm water
• 1/2 cup (55 g) toasted chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup (55 g) toasted chopped pecans
SHOW YOUR WORK
This recipe is a loose mash-up (hah!) between Julia Moskin and Alison Barkat’s cinnamon banana bread recipe from NY Times Cooking and Chris Kimball’s cardamom banana bread. But with lots of nuts.
Full disclosure: I forgot to add vanilla, and then when I tasted the final product, realized it didn’t need it. But if you want to add some, it definitely won’t hurt the cause.
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350°F/177°C. Prepare a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan (or one of similar volume) by buttering it or spraying it with Pam and then lining it with parchment or wax paper, leaving paper hanging over the sides to lift the cake.
Toast your nuts, if they are raw, in a super-hot cast iron pan, stirring constantly. When they are done, remove from the pan or they’ll burn.
In a large bowl, combine flour, granulated sugar, baking soda and salt.
In another bowl, mash your bananas. Set aside.
In a sauce pan, heat your butter gently until it melts, and then carefully watch it while it browns. It will begin to smell like caramel and you will see toasted brown protein particles at the bottom, at which point you must turn off the heat. Do not burn.
Add the cardamom and nutmeg to the butter, stir, allowing the spices to toast a bit in the hot butter.
Add the bananas to the butter-spice slurry and stir. Add the honey, and stir.
In a measuring cup, combine the 2 eggs and the warm water and whisk until combined.
Pour the banana-spice-butter slurry into the flour mixture and combine. This should cool it enough that you can add your eggs, but make sure of this before you add the eggs, or they will scramble. Warmish is ok. If your finger registers it as hot, it is too hot. Wait a minute or two, then add the egg-water mixture, and fold everything together.
Toss the toasted nuts with a small handful of flour so they won’t sink to the bottom. Fold in the toasted, flour-coated nuts.
Bake until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 hour, checking after 50 minutes.
Cool on a rack in the pan for about 20-30 minutes. Use the edges of the paper to lift the cake out of the pan.
