Banana Feather Loaf

I’m really having a hard time figuring out what to say about this one. I make Rose’s white sandwich bread so often that I’ve pretty much got the quantities memorized, and this one is basically the same technique. A little less butter here, add some banana, and probably change some of the other ratios (like you might not need as much honey with banana for the yeast to feed on)… but it’s basically the same bread. This is another of those cases where I probably wouldn’t have tried it if not for the bake through, but I don’t know that I’ll go out of my way to bake it again, unless I want something interesting to use as the basis for french toast for a really special breakfast. I just can’t figure out what else to use this for. Other than snacks. And it’s definitely good for snacks. But it’s got a sweetness to it that (I think) makes it less appropriate for things like grilled cheese, tuna melts, or garlic bread, which is really what bread’s used for, around here.

On to the process. It’s really straightforward: make a sponge (mix water with some of the yeast and flour). Mix the rest of the flour and dry ingredients together, and sprinkle it over the wet mixture. I then add the butter so that it can soften while the sponge is doing its flavour thing. Cover the bowl, let it sit for an hour or more, then add mashed banana, and mix it up.

Let it rest for 20 minutes after initial mixing, then knead until smooth. Let it rise, then shape it into a loaf.

Let that rise, then bake.

Consume! This is good with peanut butter, particularly if you’re a peanut butter & banana sandwich type of girl. Or boy, I suppose. It doesn’t really have a strong banana flavour, in my opinion, but a subtle one, and a little bit of sweetness like I mentioned at the top of this post. I’m not really sure what to do with the rest of the loaf. I’m thinking slice & freeze, and take a slice out when I want a snack that isn’t ice cream. On that basis, it may take a while to consume.