--It could just be the characteristic of that particular recipe. Try another recipe that has a different ratio of ingredients the next time. Just stay clear of the banana bread recipe in Peter Reinhart's "Crust & Crumb". It's a failure from the start. The ratio of ingredients is completely off.

--Did you by any chance use a high-protein flour, such as bread flour or King Arthur All-Purpose? Those two flours are too high in gluten. A National Brand of all-purpose flour (Pillsbury, Gold Medal) have less protein (gluten) and will work better in a quick bread.

--Have you ever checked the internal temperature of the banana bread for doneness with an instant read thermometer rather than baking it by the clock and using a toothpick or touch test? That temperature would be 210-degrees F for most quick breads.

--Does the bread also have air tunnels running through the crumb? This means there was too much gluten developed during mixing. Keep mixing, once the liquid and dry ingredients are added together, to a minimum. I never use an electric mixer when making quick breads other than creaming the fat, if that is part of the mixing method. I use a Danish dough whisk, which is the greatest tool for blending batters to help prevent over-developing the gluten.

-Grainlady

Edit: I forgot to add, there is a debate about glass and metal pans and temperature. It is almost always suggested you reduce the temperature for a glass pan by 25-degrees. I personally find a heavy metal pan bakes the best. I use my old glass loaf pans for other things....

This post was edited by grainlady on Sun, Mar 2, 14 at 14:04

Donnar57: Hope this isn't considered hi-jacking; I'm never sure when it sorta pertains to the same question.

Grainlady: Is KA AP flour good for most other things? I hate having to have ten different flours if not necessary!

and which size Danish whisk do you use?

Bananas vary a lot in size. I hate recipes that specify a number of bananas instead of an amount of mashed banana. That could be the problem. It could also be a bad recipe.

Printing this one for reference. Have never had an issue with banana bread, but want to try milling my own wheat.

The recipe I use does have lemon juice as well as sour cream, so that helps with the problem of lack of acidity in very ripe bananas, which seems to be all I ever have.

I do agree that King Arthur AP flour is high protein and it takes some adjusting when using it for something like quick breads. Right now I have King Arthur AP and Whole Wheat, some Bob's Red Mill Rye, some Swansdown cake flour, some White Lily and plain old Gold Medal. I also have cornmeal, both white and yellow and THREE kinds of oats, LOL, the "quick", the regular 5 minute oats and some steel cut. I also have wheat berries that I've been grinding for flour for bread. My pantry looks like I could open a bulk food store.

I use the King Arthur for bread, the cake flour was a leftover from the last wedding cake I baked, I get picky about those. The White Lily is for biscuits, the Gold Medal for everything else. Two kinds of cornmeal because Elery is from Tennessee and his sister says it isn't cornbread if it's yellow, although I don't particularly care which color it is.

In short, I'm also going to blame it on your flour, or on overbaking. If you are using new pans and they are glass ones, I'd be watching the bread carefully to be certain it is not overbaking, and probably be using a thermometer a couple of times until I get used to the new pans.

Oh, and Christine, I also have the smaller Danish Dough Whisk, it gets used regularly.

Annie

Grainlady: I have more questions, but feel like I need to start another thread and not hi-jack the banana bread.

Sorry Donnar57.

Ii have to say it is the recipe. See Aunt Hollys Banana Bread on Epicurious.com. There are 399 reviews with a 3.8 out of possible 4. I have been using this aunt holly banana bread for a couple of years and it is always very moist! almost too moist. I use mostly ka ap or traderjoes all purpose and get wonderful results. Delicious.

If you were to scan the reviews you would see that so many ppl get excellent results using the recipe strictly and so many make all kinds of modifications. It is a great recipe. If you don't believe, think about the almost 400 printed reviews. And all those ppl who happily use this recipe and don't write a review.
And I tend to overbake things. I use ap, all purpose, mostly ka but sometimes others. Also, if I err, it would be to add a bit more banana. I freeze bananas and use my stash of frozen brown bananas. Haven't failed or even had a medium good one. No, they are excellent and almost too moist. Read the myriad good reviews and keep it simple . See what you think. Good luck

Another vote for the one from Epicurious. As I said, no issues. I've used whatever AP the market has, including the one under its own name (not sure if it's another brand labeled with local chain's name), KA, etc.

This banana bread recipe was posted here years ago by Nancy. I've used King Arthur AP flour every time I've made it. This recipe is moist and delicious.

DELI BANANA BREAD

2 cups unbleached AP flour
3 very ripe bananas, mashed well
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup plain yogurt (buttermilk or sour milk will also work)
¾ tsp baking soda
2 large eggs, slightly beaten
½ tsp salt
6 Tabsp butter, melted and cooled
1 cup chopped walnuts (toasted if you have time)
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and flour bread pan.
Whisk dry ingredients together in a large bowl, stir in walnuts.

In a medium bowl, mix together bananas, yogurt, eggs, butter and vanilla.

Add wet ingredients to the dry, mixing gently with a spatula, just to combine, batter should look lumpy. You don't want to over mix. Scrape batter into a 9” loaf pan.

Bake about 55 minutes, until loaf is golden and a toothpick comes out almost clean. It can have a crumb or two, but you don't want wet showing on the toothpick.

Cool about 5 min., then turn out of pan to finish cooling on a wire rack. Makes 1- 9" loaf.

Note: I’ve added dried cherries to this recipe and loved it! To substitute, use ¾ cup nuts and ½ cup dried sour cherries.

Sharing banana bread recipe that my family enjoys~

Sour Cream Banana Bread

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup oil

2 eggs

1 cup mashed bananas (2 medium)

1/2 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour bottom only of a 9 X 5 loaf pan. In large bowl, beat together sugar and oil. Add eggs, bananas, sour
cream and vanilla, blend well. Lightly spoon flour into measuring cup, level off. Add flour, baking soda and salt, stir just until dry
ingredients are moistened. Pour into prepared pan.
Bake at 350F for 50 to 60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes. Remove from pan. Cool completely. Wrap tightly and store in refrigerator. Makes 1 loaf.

I can vouch for Glenda's recipe. It's the only one I use now. I had a lot of bananas in the freezer so last week I made 4 loaves. I wrap mine in plastic wrap when it is still a little warm and then wrap again in foil. I read you should never cut into warm banana bread, but it sure is hard to resist!

Grainlady, your post was very informative. Would KA's flour be good for frying chicken?

patti43-

KA A-P flour would be fine for frying chicken, but it's not an issue that is affected by the protein count like baked goods (low-gluten development for quick breads, cookies, pastry, biscuits, muffins, etc. and high-gluten development for yeast breads).

BUT, as a tightwad (me that is ;-), a less-expensive A-P flour would work just as well for dredging chicken. How does KA compare in price to other brands these days? I never thought it was worth the extra expense, but we have great Kansas mills providing flour like Hudson Cream Flour (milled in Stafford County) and W&R Flour (from McPherson, KS) - unbleached all-purpose and unbleached bread flour, which was about half the price of KA. In fact, the little stone mill just outside of town mills KA White Whole Wheat Flour for this region and I purchased the same wheat for $20/50# - which equals 50# of flour after it's milled at home. I haven't price-checked flour since going wheat-free, but I'm sure it's gone up like everything else..... :-(

-Grainlady

Gainlady, not everyone has access to the treasure trove of mills you have. There are none in Central FL. I can purchase 10 lb of King Arthur AP flour at BJ's Wholesale for 6.89. The local grocery store gets nearly 5 dollars for 5 lb. For me, King Arthur flour is very economical. It's what I have on the shelf and that's what I use. I refuse to purchase cheaper flour for one or two specific purposes. To each their own.

First-- don't worry about thread-jacking. These things happen and I never take offense!

The flour I used was my favorite Gold Medal all-purpose flour. I don't think I've ever used King Arthur, though I've seen it at the Commissary recently.

I think I'll try other recipes. This one had served me before, I think.

Donna