4 Levels of Banana Bread: Amateur to Food Scientist | Epicurious

Hi, I'm John and I'm a level one chef. I'm Gabrielle and I'm a level two chef. Johnson. I am the dean of baking at the Institute of Culinary Education and have been baking since 1973. I am a big fan of

banana

bread

. This is a very silly John version of my grandmother's recipe. It just makes me feel warm inside. It is one of the only

food

s that is prepared when something is about to go bad. I'm making this red van gluten free. but it will taste just as good, if not better, this is a more Caribbean style

banana

bread

pan, platinum bananas first instead of the bananas, we're going to mash our bananas.

Traditionally I like to use very ripe bananas towards the end of their life if they are soft, they are easy to work with as their sugar has increased. I don't know how to say that scientifically but they are sweeter so we will use bananas, the riper they are the sweeter in taste, just like with normal banana bread we remove the peels from our bananas, okay that's the point, they are perfect as they are, so I'm going to remove the top and the bottom, cut this in half, split it down one side and I'm going to take from my peel they already smell so good, that's how you taste, a really nice ripe banana , these are just nice and soft and ready to become something beautiful and amazing, let's roast these bananas with a little bit of olive oil on my paper, put them on.

Put a little sugar, a little butter on top of this, a little rum, it just gives it a nice flavor, don't go crazy, I'll put them in a 350 degree oven for about 10-15 minutes I'll just go up and mash them up because they are super ripe. I'll just use a whisk, I'll even use a fork if you don't have how the fork works, just great, here are the bananas they have. now softened considerably, nice and with a little care. I'm going to put them in the container like this along with some product and the sugar and the rum, it smells fantastic in the machine.

Now I'm going to start with this and it's very easy. It's the best part when I was a kid. I thought it was so funny that my mom let me destroy something in the kitchen. I want to reduce them to a banana stew, if there are lumps, it's okay. I like to keep it a little thick. so I'm not going to totally disintegrate all the bananas, they're getting soft and burning, so I've got my oven preheating and I'm going to go ahead and grease my loaf pan pretty simply, I'm just going to take a little bit of oil, a simple cooking spray here really leaves it a little nice and greasy this really helps you get it out when it's done we don't want it to stick so now for our dough I work with the wet ingredients I have my mashed bananas , which looks like baby

food

, melted butter.

I'm going to start with light brown sugar, just mix it all together. I'll also add all my honey. They think honey creates a flavor profile a little bit more like just regular sugar, I'm going to put some tissue in here, a gorgeous egg, I'm going to put my coconut oil in and then I'm going to put in tahini, it balances out the sweetness a little bit, then I'm going to start beat all this. a little bit of orange juice here now just tip the wet nuts with the flats, that's all I've wasted here and the wetter the better, but all the army will leave this for a while, let it get real soft and mushy, No.

Too many lumps I don't really mind lumps in my banana bread, but I like it a little chunky. I'm going to go ahead and add the eggs, whisking them quickly before adding the rest instead of using cow's milk. I decided to use almond milk and lastly, we're going to put in the crown jewel the bananas and then it doesn't exactly look pretty, but I want to try to combine all of this, all my moisture is here, like when you. make cookies or a cake, you start with the sugar, butter and base and then you go ahead and add the dry ingredients, everything is completely combined, there are still some nice lumps left for our dry ingredients, I have my flour, I want to sift my gluten free flour and then almond flour, sift that in as well to give this recipe a little more volume.

I'm going to go ahead and start combining them in small batches to make sure I don't leave anything out. with chunks and it all comes together really well, we have pink Himalayan sea salt because we're fancy like that baby powder, like with a cake. I'm going to add my dry ingredients to my wet ingredients a little at a time so as not to overwhelm them. I'm going to add cinnamon a little bit more, something always restricts the cinnamon just a little bit and then my vanilla, which I guess is not a dry ingredient, but I forgot, otherwise, Oh, sugar, I'm using light brown here, big fan of nutmeg, which I think is a little more aromatic and also makes you dream.

Make sure all ingredients are completely combined. I don't want to see pieces of flour. I'm sweating baking is not for the faint of heart, I just have some beautiful nuts here. I'm going to cut these bad boys off. I have the most important element, the chocolate chunks, the actual chocolate bars. I'm going to see what two of these bars look like and maybe we'll do three, probably three, why not? I have these toasted nuts. Chop up nice big chunks and then they're gone. You don't have to add nuts if you don't like it, you're allergic, but for me, if I have them, it's a must to add them if you've never had the satisfaction of chopping. through a bar of chocolate I highly recommend it, it is very therapeutic and it smells very, very good.

Let's all do it. Let's put a little bit of ginger in this crystallized ginger drink, a pretty small one. This is to taste, make your flower and so distribute the baking powder and the baking soda, which is important for the nuts, this looks so good, stir this up before putting it in the pan, here's my puree. I'm going to put an egg in and mix it up a little bit. more and all the dryness in it, you don't want to overmix because the gluten will harden and I'm actually going to put a little bit of starter in my mixture just to make it lively and give it a little bit of flavor, that's it. now I'm going to pour this into my parchment lined pan, look at the banana pieces, nice walnut pieces, all these pieces, you can make this in a metal tin, I still like these decorative paper ones, go ahead and shake it up a little, OK?

I think it's good now to add a dressing to it to make it look really pretty and add a little extra flavor. I'm just going to add a little bit of plain granulated sugar right on top of my dough and this will give it a little bit of crunch. I'm going to cut a banana lengthwise, put it here, it's a little prettier if you put the seed side up, you'll see the texture in the video, put some nuts in there. I wouldn't toast them before I go on, I'd just put them raw and then I'm going to go ahead and take my sesame seeds and just sprinkle them on top a little bit.

I like to put a little bit of pineapple in there, just keep that kind of Caribbean theme sliced ​​not too thin, they caramelize a little bit. it's ready to go in the oven now i'm just going to preheat my oven to 325 degrees 350 degrees fahrenheit 45 minutes at 350 my banana bread is ready out of the oven it's been cooling a little it collapses a little but that's what happens sometimes We're going to turn this stove on and we're going to put some Natasha in there and a posh is actually a glaze made from agar agar, which is a seaweed, we're just going to add a little bit of water and that's fine. we're melting it by mixing it with a wash of water, let's see this, this little spatula type, give it a good shake here, oh yeah, now we're going to take a little bit on a fancy one here, glaze my pineapple there and I.

I'm even going to make a drip on top of my pecan, so I tend to put ice and sugar on everything or powdered sugar. I just like how beautiful it looks. Oh, I think the logs are not that wet, they are not rubbery, but they are very good. eat and this is my banana bread and here is my tahini with dark chocolate chunks lutein-free banana bread ban platinum or Caribbean banana bread looks pretty good, super moist just the way I like it, nice and sweet but not for sleeping, it has so many pieces. yes, I'm very happy oh no, very good result hmm platinum bread banana bread is a quick bread that is a popular and delicious way to use overripe bananas, let's see what each of our three chefs did with their recipes, we used bananas as fruit. but botanically they are actually a type of berry, although they have a distinctive flavor.

Bananas share one of the main aromatic compounds also found in clothing, called eugenol. Diary is a colorless compound found in various essential oils and is often used in perfumery. It smells so good when unripe bananas are green with a hard flesh and a slightly bitter, starchy taste. These won't even be that sweet, but when bananas ripen, the flesh becomes soft, smooth and sweet due to the amyl acetate and esters that develop if left. becomes too good, the peel becomes very dark and the flesh becomes soft and sometimes darkens due to the Browning enzyme called polyphenyloxidase. John and Gabrielle used overripe bananas because they are slightly sweet and soft and very easy to mix into the dough with a whisk. like John did or a fork like Gabrielle did this is a great way to use up bananas that are at the end of their life.

It's really a lovely little life cycle of a video. Tim used bananas to give his dish a Caribbean touch. It's not Madonna Vation. Like bananas, plantains are botanically classified as seedless berries, but they differ from bananas in that they retain their starch even when ripe, so while the peel of bananas may be black, indicating maturity, they are still very dry and starchy inside with some astringency. They have less sugar than bananas and are generally not eaten raw like their banana cousins ​​due to their high starch content. John Spatter was classic, simple and delicious. He prepared his pan with a cooking spray that allows the banana bread to easily release from the pan once. is cooled, he used a simple muffin mixing method, meaning he mixed all the dry ingredients except the sugar and separately mixed the wet ingredients with the white sugar and then combined the two with minimal mixing, simply mix with a fork , relied on baking powder as Your self-rising baking powder for homemade recipes is actually called sodium aluminum sulfate phosphate.

It reacts and produces sulfuric acid when combined with wet ingredients and then converts the sulfuric acid to carbon dioxide when heated during baking. It's the carbon dioxide that rises the dough and gives it that nice, tender crumb. Gabrielle prepared her pan with parchment paper and coated it with coconut oil. It is a gluten-free cake, so there is no wheat-based flour. Gabriela uses gluten free flour if you were to give this to someone and not talk about this gluten. -free, there's no chance they did it, they didn't, gluten-free flour is a combination of starches that are pulverized to get the consistency of an all-purpose flour, often contains starches from beans, rice, tapioca, potatoes, sorghum and cellulose, cellulose is a starch derived from Jess table wood and plant cell walls Gabriele also used brown sugar instead of white sugar John used white sugar adds direct sweetness while brown sugar adds caramel flavors more complex mineral to Gabrielle's banana bread.

She also added tahini which is made from ground toasted sesame seeds and adds a nutty coffee. -like the taste of her banana bread. I think that's the element that ties everything together. Caribbean inspired banana bread was started by toasting your bananas with butter and sugar, which softens and sweetens your bananas, which is also necessary for this starchy fruit sim. She roasted her nuts, which brought out the roasted flavors and made them darker due to the Maori action. She used a combination of baking soda and powder to give her final product additional porosity. This is a thick and dense dough, so it is good to add as much orange juice. that she added adds a bright citrus note and acts as a necessary acid along with the molasses in the brown sugar and starter culture.

This starter culture is not necessary here as there is enough acid from the orange juice and brown sugar to react the baking soda. This is really important, but it's a nice addition. Sam added it because he gave a spicy quality to his banana bread. John added chopped walnuts for texture and a richness that comes from this high-fat nut. Something about nuts in medina bread. Really go and get better Gabrielle added semisweet chocolate that she cut from the bars. These misshapen chocolate shards melt beautifully in layers. Chocolate and tahini are delicious together and create a unique and sumptuous flavor in her banana bread.

The tahini is so subtle if you didn't know it you wouldn't think it was there. Sim added candied ginger which gives her banana bread a warm, spicy sweetness. She also adds a little crunch because the sugar is crystallized. John keeps it classic with a layer of granulated sugar on top. The temperature of the bread never gets hot enough to completely melt the crystalline sugar, so it retains its crisp structure. The sugary topping on top is so good. Gabrielle cut a banana in half lengthwise and gently placed itTop your dough with sprinkled white sesame seeds. the top doesn't have to be super ripe, you can use a regular banana for this, this gives a clue as to what is in the banana bread.

Sim added pineapple slices to one bread keeping her Caribbean theme and pecans to the other bread brushing her garnish. With Paz he tastes pretty good, giving it a classic shine and adding sweetness, and she finished it with a very light dusting of powdered sugar. John baked his banana bread for an hour at 325 degrees in a traditional nine-by-five loaf pan. He makes sure the center of the dense dough bakes without burning the outside. Gabrielle baked her banana bread for 45 minutes at 350 degrees in a traditional 5-inch bread pan. She had extra rich ingredients in her bread like tahini, almond flour, and honey and almond milk.

She needed a higher temperature to dehydrate the dough. She sim baked her molds and the smaller ones for 35 to 40 minutes at 350 degrees. Bananas have less water and more starch compared to bananas, so they don't require as much cooking time to dry out the bread. not as moist as usual banana bread. Banana bread is a delight from start to finish. Next time you eat bananas, they would be better coated. I hope you'll consider some of our three chefs' ideas to make it your own, hello Gabrielle. Oh, I'd love for you to try this. Yes, I would love to try it.

Please do it. Well, I have a little secret for you. What is gluten-free? I'll pass it on, right? Mr. gluten free this will be our secret I have an image to maintain of being somewhat gluten free