There’s not much adjustment that needs to be made with a banana bread recipe. I think every time I want to make banana bread I use a different recipe and I’ve never had a bad experience but this is an opportunity to have one banana bread recipe in one place. I don’t usually put walnuts in banana bread, but for the sake of staying true to the recipe (and to the many people who like nuts in banana bread) I will use nuts. I don’t have any wheat germ available so I’ll be using rye flour instead (hopefully the shortage is over for everyone). My big question is whether I should replace the oleo with vegetable oil or with melted butter….I think obvious answer is when in doubt, butter. Also since margarine was supposed to be a healthy vegetable alternate to butter it should be fine. I did add a touch of extra butter.

An unexpected issue I ran into was the size of the pans. I have my grandmother’s bread pans so I assumed that was the size pan she was referring to but I was very wrong. They were WAY too big. I ended up using my smaller, 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 pan and it took all of the batter, so this recipe makes one loaf of banana bread. I have no idea what tiny tiny pans she was using for this recipe.

You’ll also notice in the recipe that I’ve written that there’s an optional step for the rye flour. I was listening to a recent episode of The Splendid Table and someone called in with a question about what to do with rye flour because they had somehow ordered massive amounts of rye flour. First of all, in this day and age it’s pretty rude to call in bragging about how much rye flour you have, give that to the people! I’m still always getting the last bag of rye when I go to the grocery store. Anyway, one of the tips that the guest, I think it was Lisa Donovan, gave was to toast your rye flour before using it to kind of…bloom the flavors before you bake with it.

• 

• 

Ingredients

3 overripe bananas

1/2 cup granulated sugar

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

2 large eggs

1 1/2 cups AP flour

1/2 cup rye flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Optional: 1/2 cup toasted chopped nuts and/or 1/2 cup chocolate chips

• Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease one 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 bread pan.

• Mash bananas in a large bowl. Add melted butter and sugar and mix thoroughly. When mixture has cooled to lukewarm add eggs and mix to combine.
• Optional step: Toast the rye flour in a cast iron pan over low heat. Stir constantly until flour smells nutty and fragrant (as if you were checking a roux), about 5 minutes.
• Mix dry ingredients ( AP flour, rye flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder) in medium bowl.
• Add dry ingredients to wet in three parts, fully combining each time. When batter has been mixed add nuts and/or chocolate chips if you’re using them, then pour into prepared loaf pan.
• Bake for 45-50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean or with dry crumbs.