what can I do to get banana bread rise more

Cooking Discussions Baking, Sweets
1

this was derived from a KAF recipe.
1/2 cup (8 tablespoons, 1 stick) butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar, light or dark, firmly packed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 over-ripe bananas, warmed in slow 250º oven for 30 mins or so to extract juice, then reduce
or longer if frozen (better). reduce the juices slowly. 1/4 to 1/2c.
1 large egg
2 tbsp bourbon
2 cups whole wheat flour
or 1c ww and 1c ap
2 tbsp oats
1tsp cinn, 1/8 tsp nutmeg, cardamom, allspice, cloves, orange bits
1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts (7 mins @350º)

Directions

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Lightly grease an 8 1/2" x 4 1/2" or 9" x 5" loaf pan.
  2. In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until smooth. Add the vanilla, baking soda, salt, and bananas, beating until well combined. The mixture will be fairly smooth, with some scattered small chunks of banana.
  3. Beat in the egg and bourbon. Add spices.
  4. Add the flours, then the walnuts, stirring until smooth.
    4.5) Add the banana juice.
  5. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top. Let it rest at room temperature for 10 minutes. Cut some frozen bans on top.
  6. Bake the bread for 50 minutes, then gently lay a piece of aluminum foil across the top, to prevent over-browning.
    Bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, then remove the bread from the oven; a long toothpick or cake tester inserted into the center should come out clean.
  7. Allow the loaf to cool for 10 minutes; then remove it from the pan, and set it on a rack to cool completely.
2

The baking soda needs to be activated by buttermilk. You might compare to some other banana bread recipes. Good luck.

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3

I used this recipe a lot and it works well for me. I think your recipe sounds like a lot of banana and I don’t know what is meant by banana ‘juice’?! I just puree my bananas with the lemon juice with a hand blender, which gives me a smooth texture for the bananas (I personally do not like finding bits of banana in my banana bread).

4

I looked at the few banana bread recipes on KAF site, the proportions are quite different from yours. Looks like the amount of baking powder used is relatively little compared to the other proportions of ingredients. I also noticed there is little egg in your recipe.

I have a recipe that works well and the bread is moist and crispy crust.

338 g plain flour
4.5 teaspoon baking powder
1.5 teaspoon salt
0.38 teaspoon ground nutmeg
150 g soft butter
338 g soft light brown sugar
3 eggs
4.5 bananas (defrosted if you froze them)
75 g chopped walnuts

The baking soda is activated by egg mixture in this case.

Recipe here:

Credit to Mrs Harters @Harters

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5

That recipe is garbage.

Most likely the ratio of your flour to wet ingredient is off because the dry ingredients are measured in volume instead of weight.

Find a different recipe where the dry ingredients (flour) are measured out in grams (or ounces for those of you on the left side of the world) instead of volume (cups).

Generally speaking you want the following ratio of leaveners to flour

  • 1.25 mL of baking soda for every 125 grams of flour
  • 5 mL of baking powder for every 125 grams of flour
6

Yep, needs some acid. My old-timey recipe has me acidify 2 Tbs milk.


C’mon, stop beating around the bush and tell us what you really think.

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7

Tell us what changes you made in your derivation.

8

thanks for your insight

9

thanks for the Dan Lepard link.

10

“Tell us what changes you made in your derivation.”
don’t recall unfortunately.

11

“Yep, needs some acid. My old-timey recipe has me acidify 2 Tbs milk.”

I’ll try some lemon juice or buttermilk.
Whats your ol’-timey or is it a closely held family secret?

12

I assume you meant bp instead of bs in your last line?
“The baking soda is activated by egg mixture in this case.”

I was wrong.
Not KAF derived but rather ATK derived.
They use microwave to extract the “juice”.
I don’t have a primitive device like that.

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13

Banana Bread isn’t meant to rise like a yeast bread. I use KAF Whole Grain Banana Bread recipe, half all purpose, half whole wheat. That’s,whole wheat, not white whole wheat or their new go!den wheat.

14

Not a secret, just old (wife’s grandmother, and we are grandparents). I’ll see if I can find it, but it’s a fat bomb and all white flour, so it might not be up your alley if you’re more of a whole wheat person.

15

as you can tell, I’m willing to be creative.

16

no, but my previous goes at the recipe had much better rise.
Perhaps my soda has lost its’ stuff.

17

Yes, baking powder.

18


@Owen - here it is. Simple, a bit too sweet, but pretty good overall. Then add anything else to it that you want. Although I was waaaay off when I said it was fatty. It’s not, now that I look at it.

2 large ripe bananas (note here, I scrape the insides of the banana peel to add fiber. Kids are not so sure they like this part, but I do.)

2 large eggs, beat them up good.

1 Tbs softened or melted butter (no mention of salt/nosal - who cares?)

1.25 cups flour (I’ve turned this into “150 g flour”), and assumed they meant AP

3 Tbs soured milk (add vinegar, lemon juice, other additions to clabber it) (I actually use 3 Tbs heavy cream and clabber it, but I’m a fat hound)

1 tsp soda (specifically re: loft, my penciled in notes, over the years, say add also 1/4 tsp baking powder. But I’m not sure this is required.)

1/2 cup nuts of your choice, optional. (Later added by me, other stuff like a cup of diced fresh apple (makes it wetter) or dried cherry bits, which my kids LOVE, or whatever you want).

Instructions (my paraphrase):
Smash bans, mix in sugar/eggs/soured milk/butter, and then, last, flour-soda mixture.

“This is a very soft dough, pour into a loaf pan and bake at medium”.

A couple of things I’ve learned is if old cookbooks say “medium”, then they mean 350°F, and if they do not recite a time, they probably mean 1 hour of baking.

19

thanks. Think I may go with Lambchop53 idea of buttermilk.
Seems more eggs in these suggestions too. As well as the original ATK.

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20

Shit, man, I hope it all works out for you!