Peanut Butter & Banana Bread | More Sweets Please

Peanut Butter Banana Bread

I have a thing for banana bread.

I grew up with many a slice of the margarine-smeared, Mom-made Fannie Farmer banana bread packed into my lunch at school. (Although I loved banana bread, let’s tell it like it is: I’d have taken the strawberry Fruit Rollup at recess any day. Or the mass-produced but still crave-worthy Vachon Flaky pastry thingy that came in its own plastic wrapper, which I’ll attempt to bake on my own one day in a non-synthetic way.)
My order of choice at The Mountainview Restaurant (where I spent countless hours after school waiting for my Mom to finish her bottomless cup of black coffee while writing whatever she was writing in her journal) was the banana muffin, which was served warm with butter. (Microwaves were new at the time, so I think they heated everything up just because they could.)
The Husband and I sent the guests at our wedding home with a loaf of Banana Nut Bread (hokey, I know, but we’d do it all over again) that we made in his then- basement apartment. (I just calculated that we peeled 210 bananas to make the loaves. That’s a lot of bananas.)

So when you’re into a classic bread like this one, and you’ve perfected the recipe (the one you’ll make until arthritis means you can’t crack the eggs anymore or until Alzheimer’s means you can’t remember where you put the recipe) it’s fun to fiddle and gussy it up. Yes, the addition of chocolate chips is fun. Definitely a crown pleaser. But peanut butter? Stop the presses. We’ve all had PB & banana sandwiches on wonderfully squishy white bread (back when people bought Wonder bread because they didn’t know that it was evil), and I’m pretty sure we all liked the medly of flavors. So let’s make it happen in a bread made with love, and non-toxic ingredients, shall we?

Adapted from my Banana Nut Bread recipe…

2 1/2 cups all-purpose, unbleached flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
3/4 cups unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar (packed)
2 large eggs
3 cups bananas (very ripe, mashed, about 7 medium)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup peanut butter
1. Preheat oven to 325° and grease two 9 x 5 loaf pans (or 18 big muffin cups).
2. In a medium bowl: combine flour, baking soda and salt.
3. In a large bowl: cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Add eggs, bananas and vanilla, beating at medium speed until thick (2 -3 minutes). Scrape sides of bowl.
4. Add flour mixture to butter-banana concoction, and stir on low speed until just combined… be careful not to overmix.
5. Pour half of batter batter into prepared loaf pans, spoon peanut butter in blobs over surface of batter, and pour remaining half of batter overtop. Smooth tops of batter, and bake for 60 – 70 minutes (until cake tester comes out clean). Cool in pans on wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove from pans to cool to room temperature.
Tips:
- Making muffins? Scoop a small amount of batter into greased & lined muffin cups, add a teaspoon of peanut butter to the top of the batter, and add more batter on top (filling no more than 3/4 full). Bake for 25 minutes (until cake tester comes out just about clean).
- Use a potato masher to smoosh the bananas. As discussed, they will be very ripe and therefore easy to mash (don’t ruin this recipe with bananas that are less than 75% spotted, impatient baker), but the potato masher tool has improved the quality of my life since I started using it for this purpose.
- The peanut butter technique: it doesn’t have to be fancy. Just take 2 teaspoons, scoop some out of the jar with 1 spoon and use the other to drop it onto the batter. If you’re feeling very ambitious, drop teaspoons of PB between different layers of banana batter, rather than just in the center. (Check out the picture to the right- don’t the blobs of PB look seductive as they burst out of the sides of the bread?)
- PB types: totally up to you. I like smooth and unsweetened- the more natural the better… but if you like crunchy and sweet, then go to town with it. OF COURSE you can use cashew or almond butter instead…
- Sprinkle a few peanuts over the top of the bread before baking if you’re so inclined.
- Use a serrated knife for best cutting results.
- Freeze-friendly? You bet. Wrap it tightly and it’ll keep for months.
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August 29th, 2012 | More Sweets Please | No Comments | Tags: Bananas, Breads & Muffins