Few things make me happier than walking into my kitchen one morning and seeing a bunch of black, spotted, rotten bananas. Because you and I both know they’re not rotten at all; they’re just really, really ripe. And that means they’ve reached peak perfection for one of the banana’s most sublime applications: banana bread.
This morning I was greeted by a big ugly pile of newly blackened bananas, and I knew by the afternoon my house would be filled with the intoxicating aroma of fresh-baked banana bread.
Speaking of intoxicating, what could possibly make banana bread better?
How about bourbon? A little bourbon makes a lot of things better. And a lot of bourbon makes everything better.
I like using Maker’s Mark for this recipe because it’s smoother and sweeter than average. Woodford Reserve is also a very fine choice. Feel free to use your favorite, just keep it around 80-90 proof.
banana bread with bourbon glaze
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Author: The Queen Cooks
Recipe type: Breads
Serves: 12
Ingredients
1 cup granulated sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
For the bourbon glaze
½ cup brown sugar
¼ cup white sugar
¾ cup bourbon, divided
½ cup water
12 oz. (about 3 cups) confectioners sugar
Instructions
Heat oven to 325 degrees F.
Cream the sugar and butter until smooth.
Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add the mashed bananas, milk, and vanilla extract, then mix to combine.
In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt, then slowly mix into wet ingredients until just incorporated.
Pour batter into a prepared loaf pan and bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow to cool in pan for 10-15 minutes, then turn out of pan and cool completely on a cooling rack.
To make the bourbon glaze, combine the brown and white sugars, ½ cup of bourbon, and the water to a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to maintain a controlled boil and cook for 8-10 minutes, whisking frequently. Remove from heat and stir in ¼ cup bourbon. Allow the mixture to cool for about 20 minutes, then whisk in the confectioners sugar, one cup at a time, until the mixture reaches a thick, pourable consistency (you may need slightly more or less than 12 ounces).
When the banana bread is mostly cooled, top with the bourbon glaze. Allow the bread to cool completely before slicing. It’s better if it sits overnight.
There are few things less necessary for the home cook than baking your own bread. These days, we enjoy the convenience of having a decent bakery in just about every corner grocery store and supermarket. And with all that blooming and mixing and kneading and rising and punching and kneading and rising again… it seems an awful lot like work.
That being said, making bread isn’t just a chore. It’s an experience. The soft dough in your hands; the tiny leap of joy when you check in and see that it is, in fact, rising; the golden loaves growing more beautiful by the minute in your oven. And the smell! There’s nothing like the wonderful aroma of baking bread as it fills your entire house.
Baking bread can be tricky – even the most experienced bakers can tell you about a few major fails along the way. But this is a pretty straightforward recipe that I’ve used successfully to make both loaf bread and dinner rolls. It’s very soft and slightly sweet – excellent for toast, sandwiches, or just eating warm with a soft pat of butter. Trust me – it’s worthy work.
Your life will be much, much, much easier if you have a mixer with a dough hook at your disposal. If you don’t, you’re in for some manual labor. But on the bright side, you’ll have some yummy bread and some ripped biceps to show for it.
Soft Dinner Rolls
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Ingredients
2 cups warm water (110°)
⅔ cup sugar
1½ teaspoons active dry yeast
1½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup vegetable oil
5 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1 cup cake flour, plus more as needed
1 egg
Instructions
Preheat your oven to the lowest temperature setting.
In a large microwave-safe bowl, dissolve the sugar in the water, then heat the water in the microwave until it is warm, about 110°. (If it’s too hot, it will kill the yeast, and if it’s too cold, it won’t activate the yeast, so it really helps if you use a thermometer so you’re sure it’s right.)
Sprinkle the yeast over the water (do not stir). After about 5 minutes, the yeast will be bubbly and will have formed a froth on top of the water. This is called blooming the yeast. If there’s no froth, it didn’t work. Throw it out and start over.
Add the yeast mixture to the bowl of your mixer with the oil and salt. Fit the mixer with the dough hook attachment. Add the all-purpose flour, one cup at a time, blending on low speed after each addition and scraping down the sides as necessary. Add ½ cup of the cake flour and blend. At this point the dough should start to come together into a ball and pull away from the sides of the bowl. Add more cake flour, ¼ cup at a time, only as much as needed until the dough has come together and is no longer sticky.
Continue kneading the bread with the mixer on low speed for about 10 minutes. Add flour as needed to keep it from sticking. Place the dough in a well-oiled bowl, turn to coat, and cover with a damp cloth. Turn off the oven and put the dough in there to rise.
After your dough has doubled in size (about an hour), take it out of the oven, and punch it down – literally take your fist and punch it down straight into the middle of the dough. Return the dough to your mixer and knead on low speed for five minutes.
Shape dough into rolls (about the size of a tangerine), or divide half and shape into two loaves. Place rolls on baking pan (or loaves in two loaf pans) and return to oven. Allow to rise again for about 30 minutes.
Remove dough from the oven and preheat oven to 350°. Brush top of each roll or loaf with beaten egg. Bake for 30 minutes.
When cornbread is good, it’s very good. But when it’s bad, it is terrible. Dry, gummy, bland… if you, like my husband, got hold of one too many pieces of bad cornbread in your life, it may have turned you off to the whole concept.
Yes, cornbread is deceptively difficult to get right, so some just stop trying. But as a southern girl, it just didn’t feel right to not have some seriously awesome cornbread in my repertoire. It had to be moist but not gummy, crumbly but not dry, sweet but not cloying, and bursting with in-your-face corn flavor. Many, many batches later, I think I’ve found the path to cornbread nirvana.
Cast Iron Skillets
It’s super duper important that your iron skillet is seasoned before you try this recipe. “Seasoning” an iron skillet just means that your skillet’s cooking surface has a layer of lipids (fat molecules) that fill in the porous surface of the iron and bond to each other, making the skillet non-stick. It also keeps your skillet from rusting, because the lipid layer prevents oxygen from bonding with the iron.
You can buy pre-seasoned skillets, but it’s easy enough to season a skillet yourself by coating the cooking surface with a thin layer of fat (lard or vegetable shortening are commonly used, but flaxseed oil is ideal), then baking it in a low oven (200 degrees) for an hour or two.
And because dish detergent dissolves lipid bonds (that’s kind of the point), you should never ever ever ever wash your skillet with soap. Just scrub the skillet with a clean brush, ideally while it’s still hot. If you need an abrasive to scrub off a stuck-on mess, make a paste of coarse salt and water, and put your back it.
Honey Buttermilk Cornbread
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Serves: 8
Ingredients
1 cup stone-ground yellow cornmeal
¾ cup all-purpose flour
1½ tablespoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup butter
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg
½ cup honey
1 cup whole kernel corn
1 tablespoon butter
Instructions
Put a 10-inch cast iron skillet in the oven, then preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
While the oven is preheating, stir together the dry ingredients – the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt – in a large bowl.
Melt the butter, then slowly add the buttermilk while whisking constantly. Add the egg and honey and whisk until well-blended.
Five minutes after the oven is done preheating, remove the skillet. Add the tablespoon of butter and swirl the pan until the butter is melted.
Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, then pour in the wet ingredients. Stir until well-blended, then fold in the corn. Transfer the batter to the hot skillet. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the center doesn’t giggle if you shake it a little.
Allow the cornbread to cool for 10-15 minutes before cutting and serving.
My husband used to attend an annual conference in December in Williamsburg, Virginia, so for several years I had the pleasure of tagging along for a mini-vacation. (Christmas in Williamsburg – highly recommended.) So I was strolling around Colonial Williamsburg one day, when I walked into what I thought was a kitchen store. But this was no store – it was A Chef’s Kitchen, which is a fantastic kitchen studio where Chef John Gonzales and an assistant whip up your dinner right in front of you. They prepare it, then you eat it while you watch them work on the next course. Mr Gonzales happened to be there that day, and I had a very enjoyable chat with him for about 5 minutes before I realized he was the author of a cookbook called Holiday Fare: Favorite Williamsburg Recipes, which I had bought at a gift shop just an hour or so before. A year later, I attended a dinner class with my mother. It was divine. If you ever find yourself within driving distance of Williamsburg, you should make it a point to go.
Holiday Fare quickly became one of my favorite cookbooks. It’s fun to browse because it incorporates the history of colonial cooking into its narrative; many of the recipes are actually adapted from these centuries-old dishes. This recipe for Gingered Pumpkin Muffins, for example, is accompanied by a short history of the development of quick breads in colonial America, and the origin of the muffin pan.
See? I told you I’m a food geek.
Gingered Pumpkin Muffins
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These muffins are perfect when the weather is cold. Moist and tender on the inside, with a crunchy sugar crust on top. They’ll warm you from the inside out. Adapted from John R. Gonzales
Serves: 16
Ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon cinnamon
¾ teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon table salt
12 tablespoon (1½ sticks) butter
1 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin puree
1½ cups milk
2 tablespoons oatmeal
2 tablespoons chopped walnuts (optional)
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
Instructions
Preheat oven to 450°. Spray a muffin pan with non-stick baking spray.
Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and salt into a large mixing bowl.
Cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer on medium-high speed for 2-3 minutes, stopping occasionally to scrape down the sides. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Increase speed to high and mix for 1-2 minutes. Scrape down the sides as needed. Add the pumpkin and milk and continue blending on low speed for 1-2 minutes.
Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients, then pour in the pumpkin mixture. Using a wooden spoon, stir until well blended. Do not over mix – stop as soon as you don’t see any more flour.
Spoon the muffin mixture into the muffin pan. Fill the tins almost to the top.
Mix together the oatmeal, walnuts (if desired), and brown sugar. Sprinkle a little on top of each of the muffins.
Bake for 10 minutes, then turn the oven down to 375° and bake for 12 minutes longer, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
