Two brown spotted bananas stared at me from the counter at the end of last week. I wanted to broaden my repertoire of things-to-do-with-ripe-bananas recipes. My standby banana bread is so good but sometimes, I just want to mix it up. I considered adding them to some buttermilk pancakes and figured the syrup would make a nice flavor combination with the banana cakes. That idea then led me to just add the syrup right into the bread! A few recipe searches, minor adjustments and handful of pecans later…. we had this lovely loaf.

I have a lot of ideas and little time to execute them. Wouldn’t it be great to have a book called 52 Things to Do with Brown Bananas? One recipe for each week of the year. Perhaps it is a new 2009 weekly blog idea. We could all contribute our favorite rotting banana masterpiece! Let’s brainstorm… any ideas?

Maple Pecan Banana Bread
1/2 cup butter, melted
2/3 cup pure maple syrup
1/2 t vanilla extract
1 egg, slightly beaten
2 ripe bananas, mashed
3 Tablespoons buttermilk (or milk)
2 cups flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
3/4 cups chopped pecans plus a few for topping

Mix melted butter, maple syrup and vanilla together. Add egg. Mix in bananas and milk, leaving some chunks. In a separate bowl, combine flour, soda, baking powder and salt. Use a whisk to combine all dry ingredients evenly. Add them to wet mixture and stir just until combined. Fold in pecans. Fill two greased loaf pans or muffin tins. Top with a few pecans. Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 45 minutes. About 20 minutes or so for muffins. Top should be very light brown and toothpick inserted should come out clean.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 16th, 2008 at 5:23 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, Breads & Breakfast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.