Thursday, December 13, 2012

Aunt B’s Pecan Banana Bread

Life has gotten away from me lately. The pasted two months have been nothing but chaotic for me.  Way to much chaos to tell you the truth.  I seem to have no time for anything anymore.  My poor garden suffered this year beyond belief.  I'm not even sure if my cabbage is still alive out there.  To make things worse the past several weeks I've had to buy my son's bread only because I've had no time to make any for him at all.  Let me tell you that's the most frustrating thing for me, because his bread runs about $6 for a small loaf that only lasts half of a week.  Yap, I'm spending $12 a week on bread!  I have to get my life back under control that's all there is to it.  As for my Pecan Banana Bread I have finally had success.  I made it a few weeks back, well maybe more like 3 or 4 weeks ago and it turned out pretty darn good.  I wanted to make it one more time before I posted it, so early yesterday morning I got all of my ingredients measured out and made the flour mixture.  The egg and Almond Milk I had to wait until later in the day to set them out, so they could get to room temperature.  I wasn't to sure what time of the day I was going to be able to make it.  Needless to say I was able to get to it as I started dinner.  Thank goodness I had everything already measured out.  I have found that it's not a good idea for me to measure out my flour mixtures while trying to cook.  I seem to leave something out every time. Last time it was the Xanthan Gum in the Peanut Butter Cookies that really turned out to be Peanut Butter Puddles. LOL I had to let them over cook a little just to get them to set up.  The boys and I still ate them anyway. I wasn't about to throw them out just, because they were extra thin cookies.

As I've said before I'm not a food scientist, so everything I bake is just trail and error. Well, here a couple of my errors. I have no problem showing you my flops only because it's easier for you to understand that coming up with your own recipe is just that. A lot of trail and error. 

Just a little too much moisture don't you think
Still a little too much Banana. You can see at the bottom it's too moist.



Aunt B's Pecan Banana Bread


This is the one according to my youngest 
1 to 1 1/2 LG Banana (170 to 185 grams)
1/3 cup chopped Pecans
½ cup Light Brown Sugar

Wet Ingredients:
1 Egg
½ cup Almond Milk
¼ cup Oil
½ tsp Vanilla

Flour Mixture:
1 cup Brown Rice Flour (158 grams)
½ cup Tapioca Flour (60 grams)
½ cup Potato Starch (81 grams)
2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Xanthan Gum
¼ tsp Baking Soda
¼ tsp Salt




Grease 4x8 Loaf Pan and preheat oven to 350⁰

Mash the Bananas and set aside.

In a Large Mixing Bowl beat the egg; blend in the Oil, Milk and Vanilla. Slowly add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients.  Add the Brown Sugar and blend that into dough.  Next add the Mashed Banana and last blend in the Pecans.

Pour into the grease loaf pan and bake at 350⁰ for about 55 minutes. Let it cool in the pan for about 5 minutes. Take it out and let it finish cooling on a wire rack.

Note: I have made this with 1 1/2 bananas and it came out fine.  The reason I made it with one Banana yesterday was because that's all I had to use. Yap I measured the weight of my banana.  I want to try to stay consistent with the amount in this recipe.  Nothing is more confusing to me than when I see amounts like 2 small bananas or 2 large bananas.  I mean how big is your small banana or large banana?  Oh and what if you've peeled the banana and stored it in the freezer for later use like I have. I've cut those up so I have no real idea as to much is in those containers. LOL Now I have something to go by when I get those out to use.

Happy Baking Everyone,
Aunt B