The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Sourdough Banana Bread

buddye's picture
buddye

Sourdough Banana Bread

This is an outstanding sourdough banana bread that I would like to pass on. This came from Don and Myrtle Holm's Sourdough Cookbook in 1972. I have used it many times with excellent results.

1/3 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup mashed banana
1 cup sourdough starter
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
1 tsp vanilla or 1 tsp grated orange rind

Cream together the shortening and sugar, add egg, and mix until blended. Stir in bananas and sourdough starter. Add orange rind or vanilla. Sift flour, measure again with salt, baking powder, and soda. Add flour mixture and walnuts to the first mixture, stirring just until blended. Pour into greased 9x5" loaf pan. Bake in moderate or 350� oven for 1 hour or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool before slicing.

Hint: I used 1/2 cup cooking/baking Splenda for regular sugar. Came out beautifully.

crumbbum's picture
crumbbum

this is perfect timing. I have bananas well ripened and ready and it's time to feed the starter. I'll probably be trying this out tomorrow. thank you!

crumbbum's picture
crumbbum

I made this tonight and it's so good, it may become my default banana bread recipe.

marieJ's picture
marieJ

Does this banana bread have a proofing period?

Marie

Dying to try it!

Paddyscake's picture
Paddyscake

This is a quick bread and very good!

Betty

gen6tex's picture
gen6tex

No proofing, it's a quick bread. Made muffins with it. Nice.

marieJ's picture
marieJ

Thanks Paddyscake & Genotex.  I'm going to make this this weekend.  I'll do a test run of muffin size banana breads & pending success I hope to make some full loaves for a charity run.

Cheers

Marie.

edh's picture
edh

I built up my starter at 100% hydration for pancakes for Sunday morning, only to find that my son had developed the 'flu and had no interest in food. With the whole household now succumbed to the horrid bug, I just left it in the fridge, figuring it would probably end up on the compost next week sometime.

Today, however, I arose from the not-dead-yet, and thought I'd give something else a try.

This is a fantastic banana bread! I used 1/2 cup of honey instead of the sugar, coconut oil instead of shortening, and subbed 1 of the cups of bread flour with whole wheat. It is the best I've ever made; light, moist, banana-y, just all around tops!

Thank you,

edh

Bad Cook's picture
Bad Cook

I made this today....it's great!  It has a wonderful, silky smooth texture to the inside.  My husband said it has just the right amount of sugar....not too sweet.  Thanks for posting it!

gen6tex's picture
gen6tex

I've been using starter for 15 years and never tried to make banana nut bread with it because I didn't like banana nut bread. This is now *my* banana nut bread recipe. I baked it for 50 minutes in a heavy glass loaf dish and let it sit on the stove for the remaining 10 minutes before turning it out on a rack. Also didn't mash the bananas, just broke them up and left them in soft lumps. The result was crunchy on the outside and wonderfully moist on the inside!

Yippee's picture
Yippee

I've been looking for easy ways to use up my sourdough starter.  This is definitely less labor-intensive than making bagels or muffins.  I'll give it a try.  Thank you.

 

Yippee

Nomadcruiser53's picture
Nomadcruiser53

This looks like another winner. I'll try it this weekend. Dave

Nomadcruiser53's picture
Nomadcruiser53

Very tasty. It was a big hit in my house. Looks like I'll be making a lot more of this banana bread.

Paddyscake's picture
Paddyscake

I made this a couple weeks ago and added blueberries, good stuff!

Betty

rossnroller's picture
rossnroller

Made this a few nights ago - what a lovely banana bread! I couldn't be bothered softening butter, so I substituted canola oil. The end result was terrific.

This has taken over as my favourite way to use up excess starter. Actually, that doesn't give this recipe its due - I'll be making more banana bread now, and planning for it with my starters.

Thank you, Buddye!

marieJ's picture
marieJ

This is a lovely loaf and all but 2  of 12 loaves I've baked recently have gone to charity.  I included quinoa in many to increase the loave's nutritional value.  A nice improvement which added further sweet nuttiness to this lovely recipe.  The chia seeds though were not necessarily a success with the resulting loaf being too 'gluggy'.  Ok toasted but I wouldn't experiment with chia seeds in such a moist recipe again.

Heaven to have that lovely heart beating away in the fridge again!

Thanks to individuals for their help and encouragement.

Thanks to Buddye for this lovely recipe which will reside with me permantly.  It's been a great success!

 Cheers & kind regards

Marie

marieJ's picture
marieJ

I've just had a thought.  I wonder how well a little olive oil and some crushed pineapple would possibly improve this loaf even more.

Hummingbird style.

It wouldn't be possible to include too much pineapple as the loaf may become too dense. Or maybe that wouldn't be such an issue. Maybe dense is OK but gluggy isn't. (thinking-out-loud).  Some chopped glace ginger included?

Any thoughts?

Cheers.

Marie

zorgclyde's picture
zorgclyde

Thanks for sharing. I thought this was really awesome bread - with some modification. I swapped the shortening for butter (will try oil next), and added 1/2 cup more banana. The original in my opinion was good but needed more banana taste and a bit too crumbly. A little honey (decrease sugar) help to round out the taste. This is now my favorite banana bread recipe.

I detailed my changes and pics here in case anyone is interested: http://fromtarotopotato.blogspot.com/2011/04/perfect-banana-bread.html

(heh, I think title describes exactly how I feel...am planning to add more pics one day if I can stop myself from eating before photo taking)

sam's picture
sam

I had never thought to make a sourdough banana bread, that is very cool.  *gears shifting*.

Sourdough or not, banana bread is delicious...   but I have never made it yet.

 

jackie9999's picture
jackie9999

I was just converting this to grams to give it a try - how many grams in a cup of sourdough??

zorgclyde's picture
zorgclyde

This website has the measurements in metrics:

http://sourdough.com/recipes/sourdough-banana-bread

I think they also modified it a little but the basic flour and sourdough amount stays the same.

Bohemian Mama's picture
Bohemian Mama

Going to make this today. And thanks for the conversion

Bohemian Mama's picture
Bohemian Mama

.. and make it in the breadmaker..... using oil instead of shortening.. 

It turned out wonderfully..

Maverick's picture
Maverick

I make banana bread a lot, but never with sourdough. I am going to have to try this out. I think I will substitute cinnamon for the vanilla/orange, or maybe I will just add some cinnamon to it because I love cinnamon in my banana bread.

Liseberry's picture
Liseberry

I substituted unsalted butter for the shortening, used lemon zest instead of orange, reduced sugar to 3/4 cup, and I added a cup of fresh blueberries. I also needed a few tablespoons of water to get the right consistency. Best banana(blueberry) bread ever!

vstyn's picture
vstyn

I made this recipe tonight and half the loaf is gone. Good job! thanks for posting the recipe. Maybe next time, I try 1.5 cups sourdough and 1.5 cups  AP flour for more sour. Don't get me wrong this is a good recipe! Thanks. 

RyeSmile's picture
RyeSmile (not verified)

Don and Myrtle Holm's book, The Complete Sourdough Cookbook, is now in the Internet Archive, available for anyone to check out: https://archive.org/details/completesourdoug00holm/

This recipe is on p. 78.