Breakup Banana Bread, No. 7

This is the only banana bread recipe you will ever need, and you have my ex-husband to thank for it.

I married my first husband in the summer of 1995. It was a lavish, fairytale wedding generously sponsored by my parents' deep pockets. It was a day filled with happiness and love and I felt very much like a princess marrying her knight in shining armor.

The feeling was short-lived, however, when just over a year later our marriage began to hit the rocks. I’ll save the drama and gory details of how that went down for another day. This story isn’t about that, this story is about one woman’s love for one man’s banana bread, and her subsequent search for a replacement.

Banana bread may seem benign but it has cost me a few night’s sleep. I tend to overanalyze everything, you see. My cooking and baking are on the front lines, constantly dodging bullets from my brain. If only I had added more thyme, left out onion, baked two minutes longer, or used brown sugar instead of white. When it comes to my cooking, I am my own worst critic.

If you search the internet, you will find 219,000,000 results for banana bread. It’s a hugely popular quick bread for a reason. I mean, who doesn’t like the feeling of making something delicious out of rotting fruit? It’s soft, sweet, often spiced, and the perfect morning or afternoon snack. Some people add nuts, chocolate chunks, or raisins to their recipes. The simplest recipes call for just a few ingredients: flour, sugar, eggs, butter, baking soda, and of course, overripe bananas.

If you dig deeper into those results, you’ll find that the internet is divided on how many bananas make the best bread. Most recipes use three, Chrissy Tiegan swears by six. Not four, not five, six. To steal a phrase from one of my musical idols, that shit is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

My ex-husband used three bananas. He would make banana bread often during our relationship and I have to admit, it was my favorite thing he made. Once we had children, he would regularly make it for us and the whole loaf would disappear in a day. 

Something about his recipe stood out, maybe it was the addition of vanilla or cinnamon. I never could quite put my finger on it, and he never shared his secret. Whatever it was, his bread became so popular that he started giving it out as gifts during the holidays, cleverly baking each gift in an empty can, the perfect individual portion size. 

When we divorced, I was obviously heartbroken. As is the case with most breakups, the repercussions aren’t felt right away. There is a ripple effect and you don’t really know how it will affect you until the dust settles. You not only lose your lover, friend, and co-parent in some instances, but you may also lose your beloved banana bread.

I don’t want to sound flippant, because divorce is nothing to take lightly. However, neither is my love of food. He knew that. Once the divorce was final, he would make it for the kids when they visited, and then explicitly tell them not to give me a piece when he sent the rest home. It was a childish act and it cut deep.  

It was that spite that catapulted my quest to make my own banana bread. Why shouldn’t I be able to create my own delicious bread from browning fruit?

Now, I’m going to ask you to close your eyes for a moment and try to imagine a time Pre-Pinterest, when people had to exchange recipes on 3x5 cards, or use a cookbook. No pictures, no reviews. Just moms and grandmas handing down family recipes that were scribbled on the back of an envelope in pencil, with measurements like ⅓ of a juice glass of lard, a pinch of freshly grated mace, and a handful of nuts, shelled by hand. It was pure chaos.

This was the world in which I was forced to perform my search for better, nay the best, banana bread ever. So, for the next 10 years, I tried cookbook after cookbook, loaf after loaf. Once Pinterest came on the scene, the search moved there. Honestly, I lost count of how many recipes I tried. Although each one basically did the job, I couldn’t find the best. So, I kept playing with the results, overanalyzing, and completely ignoring the fact that this should be one of the easiest recipes to get right. Right? It’s freaking banana bread.

It has been so long since I had a piece of my ex’s banana bread, that I couldn’t tell you what it tastes like now. However, I can tell you that what started as a battle of spite between two broken hearts, turned into a personal vision quest with surprising results.

Somewhere along my journey, I gained more confidence in the kitchen, stopped reading recipes, and started using all that practice to create my very own bread. Maybe that’s a metaphor for life in general after loss, or maybe it’s the path to the best banana bread you will ever make. You be the judge.

Over the years, I’ve played with the amount of fruit (four bananas - although three is fine), butter (oh, so buttery), sugar (brown or white), spice (cinnamon or nutmeg), and add-ins for texture (chocolate, nuts, other fruit). I toyed with bake times, temperatures, and pans in order to create a nicely browned, caramelized crust. 

In my humble opinion, my banana bread is the best. Is there room for improvement? Always, but at least I can sleep at night knowing I did it all on my own. I didn’t need my ex or his stupid recipe, or anyone else’s, for that matter.

One final note from my years of trials and failures: if you decide to add anything*, make sure your batter is thick enough to keep it from sinking to the bottom of the pan while baking. I’m looking at you, chocolate chips. You can safely add one tablespoon of flour at a time until you reach the desired consistency. It should be like a thick cake batter. 

*Every once in a while, I add 1 cup of pecans to the batter for added texture. Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.

Breakup Banana Bread

By Joy Schoeph

Ingredients:

2 c. all purpose flour

1 c. sugar

½ c. dark brown sugar

3 eggs, beaten

4 large overripe bananas, mashed

1 t. salt

1 t. baking powder

¾ t. baking soda

¾ t. nutmeg

12 T. butter, melted

9 x 5 (or 1.25 lb) metal loaf pan (I purchased mine from USA Pan on Amazon)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and spray the loaf pan with cooking spray. 

Combine all the ingredients except for the butter in a large mixing bowl. Mix well. Once they are incorporated, add the melted butter. Mix well.

Pour batter into the loaf pan and bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. The outside should be a beautiful amber brown. You can place a piece of foil over the top of the loaf if you think it’s getting too brown.

Let bread cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely. If you can wait a whole day, wrap this bad boy in plastic wrap overnight. The flavors will continue to develop the longer it sits. 

Eat your heart out!