(This yummy bread is calling my name today – it’s in last year’s archives here at LABB, and I thought I’d find it for you and share it once more. Enjoy!)
{YUM.}
Over the weekend I stumbled across a recipe for whole wheat banana bread on the Paprikahead site. I did a little bit of tweaking to adapt it to what my husband and I were looking for and we had sweet success. Oh yes… it was SO good. And fairly easy 🙂
I used my 12-inch long bread pan
I noticed that a couple of Paprikahead’s commenters had mentioned their loaf was gooey and sank in the middle. Using the longer loaf pan may have helped me avoid having the same problem, but I also added additional flour… see my notes in the recipe below.
Here’s what worked for us:
The night before, combine two cups of wheat flour (I used freshly ground hard white wheat) with 1 1/3 cups of water, plus two tablespoons of vinegar. Be sure the flour is saturated, cover it, then leave it on the counter overnight, or about 14 hours.
The next morning, butter one long loaf pan and preheat the oven to 350.
Mash two large, ripe bananas in a large bowl.
Stir in:
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp baking soda
1/4 c sugar (you *should* be able to substitute honey if you prefer)
3 tbsp butter, melted
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Using wet hands, mix everything in with the soaked flour mixture. IMPORTANT: Keep an eye on your dough here. Mine was still very wet, so at this point I added an additional 3/4 cups of flour to get it to the right consistency… it shouldn’t be soupy, but it should still be pourable, kind of like a thick cake batter.
Pour into your buttered loaf pan and bake for approximately 50 minutes, until golden brown. If a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, it’s ready to come out of the oven.
Let the bread sit for at least 30 minutes before serving, and don’t be surprised if it’s gone by the end of the day 🙂
Enjoy!
OMGoodness… that looks goooooooooood, Jaime!
Your bread looks so yummy and I love the fact that you use freshly ground hard white wheat… That is something I need to start doing..
Blessings…
MMMMMMMMMMM this looks amazing! I will be trying this for sure!
As we grow our own bananas I’m always trying out different banana bread and cake recipes. Still searching for the perfect one – maybe this is it! I have been making a wholewheat banana bread which is quite moist which uses Greek yogurt as one of the wet ingredients. I also used coconut oil to replace half of the required butter. Rapadura also works well instead of refined sugar. It was quite moist but a little too crumbly. The crumb on your bread looks just perfect so I’m going to try this recipe and see how it compares to the one I have been making. I always have frozen banana pieces in my freezer – have two bunches of our bananas ripening in my kitchen at the moment. In the supermarket bananas are $12 a kilo at the moment due to a shortage after the cyclones/floods in Queensland. My friends are not buying bananas at all! Thank you for sharing this recipe Jamie.
Ann, it’s so nice to hear from you! I hope you make it – let me know what you think 🙂
It looks yummy! Thanks so much for stopping by the blog carnival and sharing it with us.
Mmmm…this sounds wonderful. I love wheat recipes. Thanks for sharing!
Looks great! We’ll be trying it for sure.
Looks delicious! I’m blog hopping and found yours. I’m a new follower. Would love for you to check out my blog and follow back!
That looks so good! I gave up on soaked banana bread, having tried the NT recipe, Paprikahead’s recipe, and I think a couple more. It makes sense that the longer loaf pan would help. I don’t have one, though. I wonder if it would work to just make two smaller loaves in regular loaf pans? Or maybe a banana “cake” instead? I’ll have to try it. Thanks for the recipe!
I’m wondering: If i am stuck with bagged whole wheat flour from the grocery store, would I still soak it for this recipe?
Yes – you soak the flour after it’s ground, so that would work just fine!