Sunday, November 22, 2009

Secret Tip: Frozen Bananas for Banana Bread

frozen bananas for banana bread
These frozen bananas are ready to be thawed and made into banana bread!
At least in my house, when it comes to old bananas, it's common to chuck them in the freezer when they're on the brink of self destruction. The arctic conditions freeze their impending doom until the perfect afternoon for making banana bread arrives.

Frozen bananas for banana bread? That's right: You can freeze ripe bananas, unthaw them later, and use them for banana bread as though they had never been frozen at all. Using frozen bananas should work on any standard banana bread recipe -- it doesn't require a special recipe tailored for the use of frozen bananas.

The problem is that when you get to making the banana bread, it's impossible to negotiate the peel off of the frozen banana, and it's just plain nasty to pick a black greasy peel off of a gooey and thawed banana. Problem.

Solution? There are two approaches -- one I just learned from a helpful reader: peel the bananas before you freeze them. Duh. And for those of us without such foresight (ehem) and a lot of frozen bananas on hand, I learned about the other approach below.
preparing frozen bananas for banana bread
Unless a banana bread recipe specifies otherwise, it's okay to use frozen bananas for banana bread.
For those of you who have already made the mistake of freezing bananas with the peel on, I learned the following hint from a friend:

Frozen Bananas for Banana Bread
  1. Remove bananas from the freezer.
  2. Chop the bananas in half. (The picture above shows me chopping the ends off, but it turns out that chopping the banana in the middle works best.)
  3. Once partially or fully thawed, squeeze the contents of the bananas out of the peels and into a bowl.
  4. While squeezing out the contents, you may want to hold the banana with a kitchen towel to protect your hands from the cold.
    Now pat yourself on the back for having saved those frozen bananas, forget about finding a special banana bread recipe with frozen bananas, and go have fun making your grandma's famous banana bread recipe! :)