While I love making this delicious bread which my hubby craves more often than he'll admit, I also like to make little changes to the recipe to make the experience of both cooking and eating it even more fun.
Now I love cornbread, and when I picked up two overripe bananas from my pantry last week to get ready to bake, I thought- why not?
For this bread (which really isn't a cornbread as we know cornbread to be) I mixed a small amount of stone-ground corn, which is very nutritious and fiber-rich, with whole-wheat pastry flour, my preferred flour for almost any kind of baking.
The result was gorgeous to look at- the corn meal flecked the bread with tiny golden dots, and gave the crust a hearty crunch.
I used about 1/3 cup of applesauce in this nut bread which gave it an intense sweetness and dense moistness that I loved, but if you'd prefer to have a cakier nut bread, you could scale the applesauce back to just 2 tbsp or even skip it altogether.
One problem with the applesauce was it caused the bread to sink slightly in the center once it had come out of the oven- too much moisture, perhaps? One way to fight this might be to leave it in the oven for an extra five minutes.
So here it is, my banana "cornbread." Enjoy!
Banana "Cornbread"
Ingredients:
Dry:
Mix together-
1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
1/3 cup stone-ground yellow corn meal
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cardamom
Wet:
5 tbsp canola oil
2/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp molasses (can reduce to 1 tbsp or leave out altogether for a less sweet bread. I love the richness and also the beautiful color that the molasses contributes.)
Place the wet ingredients in a bowl and beat on medium speed with an electric mixer until well incorporated.
Add to it:
2 tbsp flax seed powder mixed with 4 tbsp water.
1/3 cup applesauce
2 small ripe bananas, mashed well
Beat until incorporated
Add the flour mixture gradually, stirring until it is well mixed in.
Add 1/2 cup pecans, toasted lightly
Pour into an oiled loaf pan and bake about 55 minutes at 250 degrees until the top is a rich brown.
Remove to a rack and cool.
I have made a change - or rather addition- to this recipe that I forgot to put in when I posted it yesterday. Cardamom. I love this wonderful spice that's a feature in many Indian sweets, and I must say it really punched up the taste factor.
wow, the bread looks so crispy and delicious.
ReplyDeletelooks soft,moist n yummy dear
ReplyDeleteVaishali. This is indeed fantastic.I loved ur ingredients and I am very much sure it must be absolutely fingerlicking.It looks so Moist!!!!!!.Very nice recipe.
ReplyDeleteThat luks yummy and nice
ReplyDeletefluffy bread... Oooooh! looks delicious..
ReplyDeletelovely combo!
ReplyDeletebtw, i've had that 'sinking' problem whenever i've combined banana & applesauce, but if used on their own it does not seem to hamper the rising! as u said, maybe too much moisture.
One of the moist cornbread.. Simply delicious looking Vaishu!
ReplyDeletefluffy bread, looks so crispy and delicious.
ReplyDeleteWOW bread looks great, delicious vaishali:)))
ReplyDeleteThe bread not only looks tasty, but also sounds nutritious!
ReplyDeleteyumm yumm yummm ... iam not a very great fan of banana bread... but yours looks awesome.... yum yum yum..... will surely try it.... :)
ReplyDeleteYou weren’t kidding when you said the result was pretty to look at! I am for sure going to be making banana bread this weekend, thanks to you!
ReplyDeleteOh yum! This looks so good, I'm going to make it as soon as possible :)
ReplyDeleteBanana cornbread is a great idea. Addition of cardamom sounds so wonderful!!:-) I can almost taste it. Yummo!
ReplyDeleteHi Vaishali! You've a surprise waiting at my blog. Check it out.
ReplyDeleteYou must be kidding. I had the same idea flash a couple of days back. Haven't put to test yet. Now I don't have to go through the trouble of putting together a recipe. Thanks :)
ReplyDeleteUma, Divya, Pearlsofeast, smn, Anjali, Thanks very much ladies!
ReplyDeleteRicha, Thanks, dear. Interesting to know you've had the same problem - it must be too much applesauce then. I think I'll stick with 2 tbsp in the future, although this one was truly yummily moist if one didn't care about the dent in the center :)
Cham, Dhivya, Madhavi, Kumudha, Thanks very much ladies.
Shubha, Chocolatecovered, Paulina: I do hope you guys try it. Thanks for your encouraging words.
Meera, Thanks very much.
Uma, What a wonderful surprise! Thanks for thinking of me, and I will definitely pass on the award to four deserving bloggers.
Suganya, You know what they say about great minds! :)
I love banana flavoured items,looks nice dear:-).
ReplyDeleteThe best part about baking/cooking is "playing" with the recipe. I seldom make the same recipe twice as I'm always curious what will happen if I change this or that :)
ReplyDeleteBanana cornbread sounds great!
I never thought of using bananas in cornbread. Will try it the next time though.
ReplyDeleteOne question about whole wheat pastry flour. Can it be used in all recipes instead of all purpose flour? Where can I find it? I did not find it in the regular grocery store I go. Will it be available in stores like Whole Foods?
Thank You.
Annu, Thanks.
ReplyDeleteLisaRene, I agree- it really is more fun to play around with a recipe. I too tend not to cook a dish the same way a second time, although I'll admit I am a little less adventurous with baking.
Madhuram, you can absolutely substitute whole wheat pastry flour in all recipes that call for all-purpose. The only exceptions I'd make is for very delicate cakes like angel cakes or pound cakes. While the cake would still taste great, the whole-wheat pastry flour would give it a slightly more granular texture which may not be the effect you want. But for almost everything else, including shortbread cookies, pancakes and waffles, whole wheat pastry flour is a HUGE improvement on all-purpose. As you can tell, I'm a big fan :)
Madhuram, I forgot to add in my earlier response that you can find the whole-wheat flour at Whole Foods. I also sometimes find versions of this flour from Arrowhead Mills or Bob's Red Mills at my local Giant of Safeway. Hope that helps :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info. Vaishali. I have not checked in the natural foods aisle in Giant. I will check it out next time. I did see in the regular baking aisle where the stock flours, but could'nt find it.
ReplyDeletecan't wait to try this!
ReplyDeleteVaish, Would love it if you would drop by for a moment. Theres a little pick me up for you!
ReplyDeletehi vaishali,
ReplyDeleteMade this bread today and it turned awesome. The aroma from the banana and cardamom was truly tantalizing as the bread was baking.:)... simply couldn't resist... by the way, i had the oven temperature set to 350F,the bread got done in 40 -45 mins and also it did not settle down. Thanks once again for this amazing creation ;)