Recipes Discovered

Cream Cheese Banana Bread Recipe

Since I finally conquered the chocolate chip cookie, I thought it was time to move on to my other nemesis, banana bread. Seth loved bananas probably more than he loves chocolate chip cookies, but I have yet to make a decent, or even edible, banana bread. I decided to try again with a completely different recipe, one that included cream cheese in the batter. I had my doubts, but there were so many positive reviews, I tried it anyway.

To start, I toasted pecans in the oven. Toasting nuts for me is always tricky, because I’m afraid I will burn them. I watched them pretty closely though, stirring them every couple minutes. They only took about 6 minutes to toast, and then I started the banana bread batter. I combined cream cheese and butter until it was creamy, and then added sugar and eggs. Once that was combined, I added the dry ingredients – whole wheat pastry flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt – alternately with the buttermilk. Once everything was mixed, I stirred in mashed bananas, the toasted pecans, and vanilla. I poured the batter into greased loaf pans (I used Baker’s Joy, which has the flour in the spray), sprinkled the rest of the untoasted pecans on top, and put the loaves in a 350 degree oven. >>

I baked them for an hour, and they still weren’t done, so I let them go another 15 minutes. At that point, the top started to brown, but the bread wasn’t done, so I put tin foil over the tops and let them go another 15 minutes. I took them out of the oven, let them cool in the pan for 15 minutes, which is when they started to collapse. After they cooled in the pans, I turned them out onto a cooling rack, where they continued to collapse. After 30 minutes, I cut into the loaf to discover – well, I’m not sure what I discovered. I’m not sure if the bread wasn’t done, or if it was just so heavy, it collapsed into a dense mess. Either way, the bread looked like someone smooshed half of it. I had a piece anyway, and it didn’t taste bad, although I really think it could have used some cinnamon to boost the flavor. The bread definitely didn’t have any texture or structure though. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong, but if anyone has a banana bread recipe that is “fool proof”, please help me out. I will try not to mess it up too badly.