4 Levels of Banana Bread: Amateur to Food Scientist | Epicurious

hi I'm John and I'm a level one chef I'm Gabrielle and I'm a level two chef Johnson I'm the Dean of bread baking at the Institute of Culinary Education and I've been baking since 1973 I am a huge fan of banana bread this is a very dumb John version of my grandma's recipe it just makes me feel warm inside it's one of the only foods that you make when something is about to go bad I'm making this van red gluten-free but it's gonna taste just as good if not better this is a more Caribbean style banana bread pan the platinum plantains instead of bananas first up we're gonna mash up our bananas I traditionally like to use very ripe bananas toward the end of their life if you will they're mushy they're easy to work with their sugar has spiked I don't know how to say that scientifically but these are sweeter so we're gonna use plantains the riper they are the sweet of the flavor just like with regular banana bread remove the peels of our bananas it's okay that's the point they're perfect just the way they are so I'm gonna take the top off and the bottom off cut this in half split down the side and I'm gonna take off my skin they already smells so good that's it that's how you know a good really ripe banana these are just nice and soft and ready to turn into something beautiful and amazing let's roast these plantains for a little bit of olive oil on my paper lay these out put a little bit of sugar a little bit of butter on top of this a little bit of rum it just sort of gives it a nice flavor don't go crazy I'm gonna put these into an oven 350 degrees for about 10-15 minutes I'm just gonna go up and mash them because they're super ripe I'm just gonna use a whisk even use a fork if you don't have a way a fork works just great here are the plantains they've now softened up considerably nice and sort of care I'm gonna put these in the bowl like this along with a little bit of product and that sugar and rum it smells fantastic onto the machine now I'm gonna start this off and really easy this is the best part when I was a kid I thought it was so fun that my mom let me destroy something in the kitchen I want to get these down to like a banana stew if there's lumps that's okay I like to keep it a little bit chunky so I'm not going to totally disintegrate all the banana they're becoming soft and they become re so I've got my oven preheating and I'm gonna go ahead and grease my loaf pan pretty simple I'm just gonna take a little oil simple cooking spray here really get that around a little bit nice and greased this really helps you take it out when it's done we don't want it sticking so now for our batter then I work with the wet ingredients have my mashed bananas which look like baby food melted butter I'm going to start with light brown sugar just gonna mix it all up I'm gonna add in all my honey as well they think that the honey creates a little bit more of like a flavor profile rather than just regular sugar I'm gonna put a little bit of a knitter in here one egg gorgeous put in my coconut oil and then I'm gonna put in tahini it balances out some of the sweetness then I'm gonna start whisking this together put a little bit of orange juice in here now just tip the moist nuts with flats on it's all I've been waste here and the moister the better but the whole army just gonna leave this for a little while let this get really soft and mushy not too many lumps I actually don't mind a little lumps in my banana bread but I like it a little chunky I'm going to go ahead and add in eggs give these a quick whisk before I put in the rest instead of using Dairy Milk I decided to use an almond milk and then lastly we're gonna put in the crown jewel the bananas and then it doesn't exactly look pretty but I want to try and get this all combined all my wet is in here just like when you make cookies or a cake you start with your sugar and your butter and your base and then you go ahead and add in your dry ingredients it's all fully combined still have some nice lumps in there for our dry ingredients have my flour I want to sift my gluten-free flour and then almond meal sift that in as well to kind of bulk up this recipe a little bit I am going to go ahead and just start combining them in little batches so that I can make sure that I'm not leaving anything chunky and it's all combining really nicely we have salt pink Himalayan sea salt because we're fancy like that baby powder just like with a cake I'm gonna add my dry ingredients into my wet ingredients little by little to not overwhelm it we're gonna add cinnamon a little extra something always hold back on cinnamon just a little bit and then my vanilla which I guess is not a dry ingredient but I forgot it out of it otherwise Oh sugar I'm using light brown here big fan of nutmeg which I find is a little bit more aromatic also makes you dream make sure that all the ingredients get fully combined I don't want to see bits of flour I'm sweating baking isn't for the faint of heart just got some beautiful walnuts here I'm gonna chop these bad boys up I have the most important element the chocolate chunks the actual chocolate bars I'm gonna see what two of these bars look like and maybe we'll do three probably three why not I have these roasted pecans rough chop nice big pieces and then they go you don't have to add a nuts if you don't like to you're allergic but for me if I have them it's a must add if you've never had the satisfaction of cutting through a chocolate bar I highly recommend it it's very therapeutic and it smells really really good we're gonna do everyone we're gonna put a little bit of ginger in this crystallized ginger shot a quite small this is to taste makes your flower and so that you distribute the baking powder and the baking soda which is important for the nuts in this looks so good give this a stir before I put it into the pan here's my mashed I'm gonna put one egg in and mix that up a little bit more and all my dry in you don't want to over mix because the gluten will tighten up and I'm actually gonna just put a little bit of starter into my mix just to like live and that flavor up a little bit this is done now I'm going to pour this into my parchment lined pan see the lumps of banana nice chunks of walnut all these chunks you can do this in a metal tin I still like these decorative paper ones go ahead and give it a little shake okay this looks good to me now to add on a topping make it look really pretty and add some extra flavour just gonna add in some simple granulated sugar right on the top of my batter and this will give it a little bit of crunch I'm going to cut a banana lengthwise place it in here it's a little prettier if you put the seed side facing up you kind of see the texture of the video put some pecans on I wouldn't roast these before going on just put these on raw and then I'm gonna go ahead and take my sesame seeds and just do a nice little sprinkling all over the top I like to put some pineapple on there just keep that sort of Caribbean theme going not too thin slices they sort of caramelize up a little bit this is ready to go into the oven now just going to preheat my oven to 325 degrees 350 degrees Fahrenheit 45 minutes at 350 my banana bread is ready out of the oven it's been cooling for a little bit it collapse a little bit but that's what happens sometimes we're gonna turn this stove up and we're gonna put a little bit of Natasha in there and a posh is actually a glaze that's made from agar agar which is a seaweed we're gonna just do a little bit of water and okay we're melting it down mixing it with a water wash that's going let's check these out this little spatula guy give it a nice little shake here oh yeah now we're gonna take a little bit in a posh here glaze my pineapple there and I'm even going to do a drip on top of my nut so I tend to put ice and sugar on everything or confection sugar I just like how it looks gorgeous oh I think the trunks it's not so wet it's not gummy but it's very good to eat and this is my banana bread and here is my tahini dark chocolate chunk lutein free banana bread ban the Platinum or Caribbean plantain bread [Music] looks pretty good super moist just the way I like it nice and sweet but not to sleep it got so many chunks in it yeah I'm so happy oh no pretty good result hmm pan de platino banana bread is a quick bread that's a popular and delicious way to use overripe bananas let's see what each of our three chefs did with their recipes we use bananas as a fruit but botanically they're actually a type of berry although they're distinctive in taste bananas share one of the main aromatic compounds you also finding clothes called eugenol you journal is a colorless compound found in a number of essential oils and often used in perfumery this smells so good when unripe bananas are green with a hard flesh and a very starchy slightly sour taste these aren't even gonna be that sweet yet s bananas ripen the flesh becomes soft smooth and sweet due to amyl acetate and esters that develop if left to become over right the peel gets very dark and the flesh becomes soft and sometimes darkens due to the Browning enzyme called poly phenyl oxidase John and Gabrielle used overripe bananas because they're mild sweet and soft and very easy to blend into the batter with a whisk like John did or a fork like Gabrielle did this is a great way to use bananas that are at the end of their life it's really a lovely little lifecycle of a video Tim used plantains to give his dish a Caribbean Flair it's not Madonna vation know the same like bananas plantains are botanically classified as seedless berries but are different from bananas and that they retain their starchiness even when they're ripe so while the plantains peel may be black indicating ripeness they're still very dry and starchy inside with some astringency plantains are lower in sugar than bananas and usually aren't eaten raw like their banana cousins due to their high starch content John spatter was classic simple and delicious he prepared his pan with a cooking spray it allows the banana bread to release easily from the pan once it's cooled he used a simple muffin mixing method which means he mixed all of his dry ingredients except the sugar and separately mix the wet ingredients with the white sugar and then combines the two with minimal mixing simple mix with a fork you relied on baking powder as his leavener baking powder for homemade recipes is really called sodium aluminium sulfate phosphate it reacts and produces sulfuric acid when it's combined with wet ingredients and then converts the sulfuric acid to carbon dioxide when it's heated during baking it's the carbon dioxide that leavens the batter and gives that nice tender crumb Gabrielle prepared her pan with parchment paper and brushed it with coconut oil it's a gluten-free cake so there's no wheat based flour instead Gabriela uses gluten-free flour if you were to give this to someone and not talk about this gluten-free no chance they did no gluten free flour is a combination of starches that are pulverized to make the consistency of all-purpose flour it often contains starches from beans rice tapioca potatoes sorghum and cellulose cellulose is a starch derived from into Jess table wood and plant cell walls Gabriele also used brown sugar instead of white sugar that John used white sugar adds straight sweetness while brown sugar adds more complex mineral caramel flavors to Gabrielle's banana bread she also added tahini which is made from ground toasted sesame seeds and adds a nutty coffee-like flavor to her banana bread I think that that's just kind of the element that's bringing everything together sims Caribbean inspired banana bread was started by roasting his plantains with butter sugar from this softens and sweetens his plantains which is necessary for this starchy fruit sim also roasted his pecans which brought out roasted flavors and made them darker due to the Maori action he used a combination of baking soda and powder to give extra porosity to his final product this is a heavy and dense batter so it's good to add both the orange juice that he added adds a bright citrus note and acts as a necessary acid along with molasses on the brown sugar and the starter culture this starter culture is not needed here since there's enough acid from the orange juice and the brown sugar to make the baking soda react this is really important but it does make a nice addition Sam added it because it gave a tangy quality to his banana bread John added chopped walnuts for texture and a richness that comes from this high-fat nut something about the nuts in the medina bread just go really and enhance Gabrielle added semi-sweet chocolate that she chipped from bars these misshapen shards of chocolate melts beautifully in layers the chocolate and the tahini are delicious together and create a unique and sumptuous flavor in her banana bread the tahini is so subtle if you didn't know you wouldn't think it was in there sim added candied ginger giving his banana bread a warm spicy sweetness it also adds a bit of crunch because the sugar is crystallized John keeps it classic with a dusting of granulated sugar on top the temperature of the bread never gets hot enough to fully melt the crystalline sugar so it retains its crunchy structure the sugary topping on top is so good Gabrielle's sliced a banana in half lengthwise and placed it gently on top of her batter with white sesame seeds sprinkled on top doesn't have to be super ripe you can use a normal banana for this this gives a hint as to what's in the banana bread sim added sliced pineapple to one loaf keeping with his Caribbean theme and pecans to the other loaf he brushed his garnish with the Paz tastes pretty good which gives a classic shine and added sweetness and finished it with a very light dusting of powdered sugar John baked his banana bread for an hour at 325 degrees in a traditional nine by five loaf pan this ensures that the center of his dense batter bakes without burning the outside Gabrielle baked her banana bread for 45 minutes at 350 degrees in a traditional mine by 5 loaf pan she had extra rich ingredients in her bread like tahini honey almond meal and almond milk so she needed the higher temperature to dehydrate her batter sim bakes his and smaller pans for 35 to 40 minutes at 350 degrees plantains are lower in water and higher and starch compared to bananas so they don't require as long of a cooking time to dry the bread no quite as wet as your regular banana bread banana bread is a treat from start to finish next time you have bananas that would be better off in a batter I hope you'll consider some of our three chef's ideas to make it your own hey Gabrielle oh I would love for you to try this yes I would love to try it please do uh-huh well I have a little secret for you what's that it is gluten-free gonna air this right mr. non-gluten freed himself this will be our secret I have an image to maintain of being anti gluten free stuff

Channel: Epicurious

Views: 1,822,620

Rating: 4.9168425 out of 5

Keywords: 4 levels, 4 levels epicurious, epicurious 4 levels, epi 4 levels, 4 levels epi, 4 levels banana bread, how to make banana bread, banana bread recipe, professional banana bread, homemade banana bread, best banana bread, banana bread, expert banana bread, epicurious banana bread, banana bread epicurious, banana bread 4 levels, four levels, banana bread ingredients, banana bread tips, baking banana bread, bake banana bread, make bread, bake bread, baking bread, epicurious

Id: ZrT6fMx2ghc

Length: 17min 44sec (1064 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 03 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/kleeinny]

I never thought of making plantain bread. Hm