TWD: Black and White Banana Loaf

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie selection - coming from Ashlee of A Year In The Kitchen - is the Black and White Banana Loaf on page 232 of the incredible and awe inspiring baking tome, Baking From My Home To Yours, by Dorie Greenspan.

OK, so, what can I say about this recipe? First of all, it had quite the P&Q session going this week, which, though funny on some levels, I thought was pretty indicitive of how helpful and fun a baking group like this can be. What was the raging debate? How much banana is 1 1/2 bananas. Well, I can't say how much it ended up being for others, but for me it was only about 1/2 cup. Also there was a lot of discussion about runny batter - but mine was really thick. The cake was moist, tender and flavorful - but surprisingly no one flavor took center stage - just a really good blending of all of them.

At first bite I really didn't think all that much of the cake to be honest. Then, as I kept eating my slice the flavors started coming through a bit more and I really liked it. I thought it was a really nice way to use extra ripe bananas that was much more size friendly than a big bundt cake would have been. I have some mini loaf pans so I made three mini loaf cakes with my batter and baked them for 30 minutes @ 325 degrees, then tented them with foil and turned the oven down to 300 degrees for another 30 minutes. They were done perfectly and I really didn't have any problems with the baking time. I turned my oven down just because, even though I tented them, since they were baking in dark non-stick pans and were smaller I didn't want to overbake them or dry them out. Personally, I will definitely be making this one again when I have just a little leftover banana to use.

Make sure to check out what the rest of the gang over at Tuesdays with Dorie thought of this week's recipe! I say it every week, but every week I mean it more - I l/o/v/e this book! Go get it now if you can!