BUTTER PECAN BANANA BREAD
Controversial: Maybe the best banana bread doesn't have chocolate, after all.
Elegance is elimination. —Balenciaga
Hello!
First, a warm welcome to new subscribers and an enormous and heartfelt thank you to all my new paid subscribers. Your pledge for the coming year is so encouraging. The last few weeks reminded me that in a world of overpriced everything, 30% off counts, so I’m continuing my subscription sale through the end of January. This keeps the price at less than the cost of a new cookbook (or, about six lattes). You can upgrade here:
On to Banana Bread! You probably already have your favorite recipe. I did, too. But recently, I’ve been revisiting things, classics from my former life—the home I grew up in, favorites from my first book, and simpler times.
This past December, when I was home for Christmas, I found my parent's 1960s suburban home especially comforting—mom’s custom curtains, the beautiful wallpaper, the same textured sofa we’ve sat around as a family for 40 years, and even the carpet—warm and squishy on my bare feet —no matter how cold it was outside.
The layout of their house (four bedrooms upstairs and a round, railroad-style first floor, where every room feeds into the next around a staircase in the center) struck me as especially cozy, logical, and liveable. Just like when we were kids, the grandkids could run the loop around the four rooms and back unobstructed, and all the fluffy rugs, throw pillows, and drapes dampened the sound of chaos, even when we were 18 people deep. My parent’s house is warm, textured, layered with life and function.
This is a contrast to the 1920s house my husband and I have stripped to the studs and reimagined with clean white walls, rounded arches, Danish wood floors, hand-crafted furniture, and open floor plans (read: few closest, few doors).
At the end of the trip, my dear friend, a fellow artisan who has also modernized every inch of the home she shares with her husband, texted to see how it was going; I wrote back: “So great. I could really live in my parent’s house. It just makes sense for family life.”
"You reach a point in your life where things that were once not interesting to you suddenly are,” she texted back from her own parents’ home in Virginia, with photos of her mom’s charming Christmas village displays attached. She totally got it. Both our mothers are living in versions of what we can now imagine for ourselves someday.
It’s a bit like my mom’s banana bread. There are no special ingredients; it doesn’t take long to make, but it showed up reliably and repeatedly — just when we needed it.
There were entire years, from grades six to eight, where there was almost nothing a slice of my mom’s tender banana bread, warmed for 20 seconds in the microwave with a pat of butter, couldn’t solve—not a bad test, a heartbreak, or a misunderstanding with a friend.
Mom knew then what I’m only now just understanding: Banana Bread doesn’t need to be spectacular or flashy in any way. It just needs to be homemade and delicious and easy enough to show up again and again.
My mom’s bread was always the same (though, in time, we all learned to detect if she had left it in the oven just a minute too long; She took our razzing with a smile and a shrug). Her bread rarely had nuts (at least in the kid loaves) and absolutely never had chocolate—a modern banana bread addition that’s become ubiquitous.
I get it. Over the last twenty years, I’ve made and remade my mom’s banana bread—and hundreds of other classic recipes, in the name of progress. I’ve made banana bread with applesauce or maple syrup instead of refined white sugars. I’ve stripped out the white flour, fashioned wholesome Maple-Spelt Banana Bread, and one with coconut sugar and oodles of nuts and seeds. I’ve made banana bread with chocolate and still more chocolate (more! more! more!) and even swirls of Nutella.
Whole swaths of my career—and probably that of many peers— have been defined by reworking classics from my mom’s repertoire to make them healthier, flashy, modern—or more fun. These are the kinds of tweaks I started toying with in my early recipe-developing days (for Food Network) and carried right on with for nearly two decades, a quest to prove myself as a great —an innovator!
In some ways, it’s what all creatives do. If we know how to make it better, faster, smarter, healthier, tastier, or more interesting—we should, right?
Maybe.
But, like a fashion designer who spends 20 years creating evening gowns with zippers and cut-outs, only to realize most women want a good pair of jeans and the perfect white shirt—I’m evolving—or de-evolving. Not backward, but gently sliding into a version of life that might fit better for the long haul.
My 2024 Banana Bread doesn’t have flashy whole-grain flour, fifteen ingredients, or even chocolate. It does have lots of (seriously ripe) bananas, regular sugar (gasp!), and poppy seeds. It brings back nuts—one loaf with (for grown-ups) and one without (for the kids), just like how my mom made it.
I like this new, more confident era—part surrender, part wisdom.
“Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance.” – Coco Chanel
As a closer, my favorite podcast this week (by
) was about how modern parents may be doing a disservice to their children by striving always to control “the weather” around them—aiming for constant sunshine (comfort) instead of teaching our kids to weather the storms. I’m a believer. My kids have chores, face hard nos, and go out in the bitter cold to follow through on their commitments. They have to apologize when they make a mistake (as do I). We talk out hard things, even when it seems easier not to. I’m comfortable with discomfort in the name of character building.Still, when my sweet son grows into a man, I hope he’ll remember the taste of thick slabs of his mama’s banana bread, still warm from the oven, eaten steaming off a paper napkin in the car on the way to school on January mornings and how that tiny comfort made even the soggiest days just a bit easier to bear.
The recipe is below, but first, something new from me….
xx
Sarah
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BUTTER PECAN BANANA BREAD
Mom’s original banana bread, from her well-loved and splattered Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, called for shortening and walnuts. I’m calling this butter pecan as a nod to my switch to pure butter and toasted pecans instead. There are other minor tweaks—like the addition of almond flour for some protein, but such a slight amount hardly changes the texture. I’ve also added poppy seeds which add a subtle, pleasant pop (plus tons of iron) while maintaining the integrity of mom’s original, soul-soothingly soft bread.
Feel free to skip the nuts altogether. My kids will pick them out, even at ages 13 and 8, as my siblings and I would have as kids. I split the batter in half and fill one loaf pan before adding 1 cup of pecans to the adult loaf. Or, skip the poppies/pecans altogether and keep your bread old-school—which is sometimes best of all.
2/3 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
3 cups all-purpose flour*
1/2 scant cup almond flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. fine sea salt
2 cups over-ripe bananas, mashed (about four super-ripe bananas)
1 tablespoon poppy seeds (optional)
1 cup toasted pecan halves (optional)
1 banana, split lengthwise, for garnish (optional)
Preheat the oven to 350°, with a rack in the middle third. Spray or butter 2 (8½" x 4½") loaf pans and line with parchment paper (for easier release).
Beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well between each addition and scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl. Whisk together the flour, almond flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with the banana, and mix until just combined. Fold in the poppy seeds and pecans.
Pour the batter evenly into prepared pans. Add the ripe banana halves to the top of each loaf, and sprinkle with additional poppy seeds or pecans, if desired.
Bake until loaves spring back lightly when touched and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes (do not overbake!). Let the bread cool for 15 minutes before slicing and serving.
Makes 2 loaves
Total Time: 1 hour
TO STORE: Once completely cool, wrap well and store in an airtight container for up to 2 days on the counter or 3 weeks in the freezer. For deeper banana flavor, wrap the cooled loaves tightly uncut and set them on the counter overnight before slicing and serving—bakers call this ripening the bread.
MAKE IT GLUTEN FREE: Often in a quick bread, you can sub out Cup-for-Cup or One-for-One brand all purpose gluten-free flour for all prupose flour without other tweaks. For this bread, to keep the moisture in tact, add 2 tablespoons moe butter when using gluten-free flour.
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Hi, grateful to be here! I am from Romania and would appreciate very much if you would use also grams at least for some ingredients (eg butter and flour). Thank you
It is so nice to hear about your comforting banana bread memories and I love the line about part surrender, part wisdom, so so true for midlife.