NON STOP SWEET NOMS

Get Really, Really Retro With Banana Bread

Fire up the way-back machine and set the dial to 1932

Banana-date bread. For when you bought all the bananas. Photo by author — all rights reserved.

I must have been seven or eight the first time I tried banana bread. It was in home economics class. The topic was quick breads, which is a category of baked goods that includes muffins and loaves leavened with baking soda or baking powder instead of yeast. “Quick” because you don’t have to knead, proof, or punch them down for hours. Mix, bake, and eat.

To this day, I’ll never be able to unsee the black and white textbook photos of what NOT to do when baking a quick bread. Those cautionary tales, dire warnings of abject failure as a future housewife for not understanding the art and science of quick bread mixing. Seared on my eyeballs forever: THOU. SHALT. NOT. OVER-MIX. Quick breads are a different animal than cake or regular raised bread, in which the more air you beat or knead in, the smoother the batter, the lighter and taller the result. Over mix a muffin or quick loaf, and your bake is ruined.

Wheat flour contains gluten, a protein that becomes elastic with handling and provides structure during the baking process. As we know from physics class, hot air expands. When you’ve whipped your batter to light airy fluffiness, the air pockets cause your creation to rise to…