Serves 8 to 10
SOMETIMES RECIPES ARE SO UBIQUITOUS, SO DEEPLY EMBEDDED IN OUR CULTURE, it’s hard to believe there was a time when that recipe didn’t exist in the home baker’s canon. The ultimate example of this is banana bread. I mean, how many of us have eaten banana bread, experienced it as the first recipe we ever baked, or christened a new kitchen by firing up the oven and baking a loaf to create an instant feeling of home? We have legendary home economist Mary Ellis Ames to thank for this ever-present American classic, a Minnesotan who reached celebrity status in the 1930s–’50s as a veritable prototype for Martha Stewart. Her recipe for banana bread was the first-ever published for it, printed in a 1933 edition of Pillsbury’s Balanced Recipes cookbook.
The appearance of banana bread also has a fascinating connection to the time period: Quick breads were still relatively young in terms of food history, with the invention of the first double-acting baking powder coming out of Calumet City, Illinois, in 1889. Faster and easier than yeasted breads, new ideas for quick breads caught a lot of attention from harried housewives. Keep in mind the Great Depression had made it essential to not waste any scrap of food, and we all know that the more overripe bananas become, the better they are in banana bread. The timing of Mary Ellis Ames’s brainstorm couldn’t have been more on-target for creating an American classic. She basically out-Martha’d Martha with this one, is what I’m saying.
Nonstick cooking spray for pan
1¾ cups/400 g mashed, very ripe bananas*
¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons/196 g firmly packed dark brown sugar
½ cup/112 g vegetable oil
⅓ cup/75 g well-shaken buttermilk, at room temperature
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon dark rum (optional)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons/272 g unbleached all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
3 tablespoons/38 g granulated sugar for sprinkling
Position a rack to the lower third of the oven and preheat it to 325°F/170°C. Spray a 9 × 5-inch/23 × 12.7 cm loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray and line it with parchment paper with a couple of inches of overhang on 2 opposite sides.
In a large bowl, stir together the mashed bananas, brown sugar, oil, buttermilk, eggs, rum (if using), and vanilla.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and fold until just blended. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
Place the granulated sugar in a small bowl. Dampen your fingertips with water and work them into the sugar until it just begins to look like snow—if you pinch some, it should just barely hold together. Sprinkle the dampened sugar over the batter, aiming to get it clumped up together in spots.
Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, 60 to 70 minutes. Let cool for 20 minutes in the pan, then use the parchment paper to help lift the loaf out of the pan and cool completely on a wire rack. Store any leftovers in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
*If you like to freeze bananas for bread-making purposes, just make sure you thaw them to room temperature, and then drain them for several minutes in a sieve to avoid adding too much liquid to the batter.