We've been baking the same banana bread recipe every morning since we opened in March 2019. We've had people suggest we add chocolate chips, or walnuts, or a cream cheese swirl. We've politely declined every time. Here's why, and what actually goes into the loaf.
The recipe, plainly stated ¶
Three very ripe bananas per loaf. The riper the better: we wait until the skins are almost entirely black before we use them. Plain flour, baking powder, a little cinnamon, brown sugar, two eggs, and a generous amount of butter. No yoghurt, no buttermilk, no oil. The butter is what makes it taste like something worth eating rather than something that's merely banana-flavoured.
Why we don't add things to it ¶
Chocolate chips make it sweeter but they also make it heavier and they compete with the banana flavour. Walnuts are fine but they change the texture in a way that not everyone likes. We've tried both. The plain version, made well, is better than either of the fancier versions. Sometimes the right answer is to not add anything.
The baking process ¶
We mix the batter by hand, not with a machine. Overmixing banana bread makes it tough, and a machine makes it easy to overmix. The batter goes into a lined loaf tin and bakes at 170 degrees for about 55 minutes. We test it with a skewer. It goes in the oven at 7am and it's usually ready by 8am, which is when we open. The smell is a reasonable alarm clock for the whole street.
How to eat it ¶
We serve it at room temperature, sliced. If you ask us to warm it, we will. It's good with a flat white. It's also good with the filter coffee, particularly if the filter that week has a fruit-forward profile. We've never put butter on it at the cafe, but we think about it sometimes.
The banana bread is on the counter every morning from 8am until it runs out. Some days that's 4pm. Some days it's 11am. Come early if you want to be sure.