Banana Bran Bread
Banana Bran Bread
This moist bread is flecked with pieces of dried apricots. Wrapped airtight, it keeps well at room temperature for several days. I find it especially good spread with cream cheese.
Servings: 1 Loaf
Equipment
- Food processor
Ingredients
- 1½ cup all-purpose flour
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ½ cup dried apricots
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ cup unsalted butter (room temperature) 1 stick cut into 6 pieces
- 4 small very ripe bananas (1 pound) peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
- 1 cup All-Bran cereal
- ¾ cup pecans
Instructions
- Adjust oven rack to lower third position and preheat oven to 350°F. Generously butter 9 by 5 by 3-inch loaf pan or 8½ by 4½ by 2¾-inch loaf pan. (Larger pan will yield flat, wide loaf; smaller pan will produce narrow, tall loaf.)
- Insert metal blade in food processor and put flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and apricots into work bowl. Pulse 6 to 8 times, in pulses lasting 1 second each, just until apricots are very coarsely chopped. Remove and set aside.
- With metal blade in place, put sugar, eggs, and vanilla into work bowl and process for 30 seconds. Add butter and process for another 30 seconds, stopping once to scrape work bowl. Mixture may look curdled; this is all right. Add bananas and process for 10 seconds. Mixture will not be completely smooth; some small pieces of bananas should remain. Add cereal and process for 5 seconds only. Finally, add pecans and dry ingredients to work bowl. Pulse rapidly 3 times, scrape bowl well, and pulse 1 more time. Do not overprocess.
- Turn batter into prepared pan. Bang pan on countertop to level batter; use spatula to smooth top.
- Bake until loaf is very well browned and cake tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 60 minutes for larger pan, 70 minutes for smaller pan. A few cracks may develop on top of loaf. Cool bread in pan for 15 minutes, then turn out onto rack to cool completely.