Bananaanadamarama Bread

One great tip I learned this year involved ripened bananas. Who hasn't bought a bunch, only to have one ripen past the munching point before you can finish the whole bunch? And one banana usually isn't enough to make banana bread with. Well, you can freeze those lone bananas until you have enough (and feel like) using them for bread, or whatever other application you have in mind. Frozen-and-thawed ripe bananas are actually easier to mash, even!

The biggest problem, however, can be figuring out what to do with all the bananas as they build up.

Well, one recipe that caught my eye was the Bananaanadamarama Bread at Baking Bites. If you couldn't tell, it's a banana-flavored version of anadama bread (anadama being a molasses-and-cornmeal bread from New England). I must admit that I have never had anadama bread before, so this is a completely new recipe for me. I stayed mostly true to the original recipe, ingredient wise. The only differences come from the fact that I have a rapid rise/bread machine yeast instead of active dry, and the banana mash I had ended up being close to 1 1/4 cups (if not a little more), so I left out the water in the recipe (having mis-read the recipe, and thinking that it called for 1/4 cup water instead of the actual 1 cup).

My mixing order was different, as well. I mixed all the dry ingredients together first, then added in the wet ingredients and just mixed with my plastic bench/bowl scraper and my hands. I got back on track with the recipe after the kneading (I tried a different technique, see below). Though after splitting the two loaves into two loaf pans I put one in fridge to bake a bit later, while leaving just the one loaf to rise and bake. One of the big reasons I did this is that I don't have two matching pans that are both the same size and the same material. With my 8"x4" loaf pans, one is glass and the other is dark non-stick metal. If I tried to bake the two of them together, one would likely burn while the other was still under-done.

I also tried a kneading technique I just heard of with this bread. Thanks to a fellow poster on Ravelry, I saw the no-extra-flour kneading technique from Chef Richard Bertinet (it's hosted on Gormet Magazine's website, but seeing as this month is their last month publishing, don't expect the video to be around long!) This method is for wet, sticky doughs and uses the dough's own stickiness to your advantage. You use whatever you normally knead on (clean counter top, or a clean plastic cutting board) without any extra flour, or oil, or whatever. You just use a plastic bench scraper. Though my actual dough was a bit drier than his so it didn't look exactly like what he did, but it did get the dough to a point where I could knead it the normal way without the dough sticking to the cutting board I use for kneading.

I didn't get the amazing oven spring from this bread that you would expect from a sandwich loaf, but it was nicely chewy and quite tasty. Molasses and banana were the main flavors, and melded together pleasantly. It's not a loaf I would make every week, but it's one that is definitely to be tried.

Pearpple Sauce

My family loves Comice pears, but they only appear in small numbers for a short period of time in the winter. Our addiction got started by my mother's work giving boxes of these pears to employees and some larger customers. And while we no longer receive these boxes, the pears remain one of our coveted winter foods. However, these pears go bad very quickly.

So what's one to do with pears that are just on the other side of eating raw? Cook them!

There is a strong fruit flavor to this sauce, with just a hint of spice and sweetness. It's also very much on the "sauce" side of the spectrum. This makes it perfect for smothering breakfast quickbreads with (biscuits, pancakes, waffles), and likely would go well as a sauce for pork chops. If you want something that's more like traditional applesauce, use a lot less water.

You can likely substitute whatever your favorite pears and apples are in this recipe, though different varieties will require different cooking times.




The Recipe

Ingredients
2 pears (I used Comice), peeled, cored, and roughly chopped
1 apple (I used Gala), peeled, cored, and roughly chopped
1 cup water
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg

Directions
Place all the ingredients in a medium saucepan and bring to a bubble, stirring to make sure it's mixed thoroughly. Cover, and turn the heat down to low. Let simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Once the fruit is tender, lightly mash it to your desired level of chunkiness. If the sauce is still too thin for you, let cook uncovered over low heat until it reaches the desired consistency.

Yield: A bit under 3 cups.