Method involving quick breads or other batters
I am on a quest to find the perfect banana bread, and have made 7 recipes so far. I am curious about the different methods used in the recipes.
1) How will the finished product vary, or is it really not important whether wet ingredients are added to dry, or vice versa? For example:
- Add dry ingredients (flour, soda, salt) to the wet ingredients (oil and sugar combined first, then mashed banana and eggs are mixed in). Note: Unique to this recipe, 3 T milk and vanilla are added after the flour mixture. Any thoughts re: the change in the final product as a result of adding the milk at the end, instead of with the wet ingredients?
- The MSK cardamom Brown Butter Banana Bread instructions say to add the wet ingredients (browned butter, banana, sugar, eggs, vanilla) to the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt).
2) Further, one recipe from a 50 year old church cookbook says to let the batter sit on the counter for 20 minutes before putting the pan into the oven. I imagine this would allow more gluten to form before the bread is baked. Based on science, should this step make a difference in the finished product, and if yes... can you describe the difference? (I did not notice anything.)
3) In general, how will the end product vary given the varying leaveners used (all for a single loaf of bread)?
-- 4 teaspoons baking powder (this recipe lists oil as an ingredient, yet invites the use of half buttermilk - introducing acid? - in place of half the oil to reduce the amount of fat in the bread). Note: I used only oil and this loaf turned out more like a fluffy cake than banana bread, IMO.
-- 1 teaspoon soda and 1 teaspoon powder (MSK cardamom recipe)
-- 1 teaspoon soda (this is the recipe with the 3T milk added after the flour).
4) Lastly, the recipes roughly have the same amount of each basic ingredient: 1 c mashed banana, 2 c flour, 1c sugar, 1c fat and 2 eggs. Except the MSK Cardamom recipe has double the banana (2 cup mashed) and half the fat (1/2 c butter). My expert takeaway (!) is that the added banana allows one to use less fat, likely resulting in a healthier end product. Am I on to something, or missing something?!
Thank you so much for your thoughts. When I go to heaven I will spend my eternity in a test kitchen!
Comments
Hi Lynn -
1.) For pancake batter, the order doesn't matter. You can leave some flour unmixed and the batter lumpy. It's more important to limit mixing and gluten development. For quick breads, muffins, scones the traditional method is adding wet to dry. The well in the center of dry ingredients allows the dry ingredients to be folded over on top of the liquid and then gently incorporated just until mixed. Adding the flour on top of the liquid would lead to overmixing. That being said, some recipe developers believe the opposite is true, which is likely what you are seeing in your first example. I think the key is, whichever method you use, to make sure not to overmix the batter. I don't see any reason why leaving behind 3 T. milk and vanilla would make any difference in the batter texture.
2.) I don't see the point in resting a quick bread batter. First, quick breads generally have either just baking soda or a combo of baking soda and powder. Baking soda (and some of the baking powder) reacts when combined with liquid and starts to work immediately. If you let the batter sit, that reaction will be lost before it goes into the oven and you will lose rising power. Also, yes - resting does develop gluten. Which you *don't* want in a quick bread. Quick breads should be moist and tender, not chewy.
3.) The bread with all baking powder was light and fluffy, like cake; not quick bread. We liked the combo of soda and powder in our bread because of two things - 1.) the added amount of bananas (for flavor) needed some extra lift from powder to achieve the density we wanted and 2.) the soda added browning.
4.) I think the goal with our banana bread was to increase the amount of banana as much as possible to boost the flavor. Because this added more overall volume, we needed to decrease the butter to adjust. And, yes, we found that was easy to do because the bananas kept the bread moist.
I hope I've answered all of your questions clearly! Best, Lynn C.