We are already having so much fun baking through this first section of Dessert Person and connecting with other people who are making their way through the whole book. We’re going to aim for weekly bakes while the recipes are still simple and less time-consuming.
The second recipe under Loaf Cakes and Single Layer Cakes was Claire’s Almond Butter Banana Bread and it did not disappoint!
Lauren’s Take
Another week, another recipe! Thank you so much to everyone who has already started following along on this journey! It’s been so cool to see how many people are a part of this baking community and how lovely and supportive everyone is.
This week was another easy (but super delicious) one. I mean, who doesn’t love banana bread? But Claire once again has taken a simple, common recipe and elevated it to the nth degree! I was panicking a bit when I had to make this loaf this weekend because I didn’t have and couldn’t find ripe bananas. Well, thank goodness for Google; I learned that you can bake bananas in the oven to ripen them. They turn super dark which is a bit unsettling but it worked!
The combination of flavours and spices (particularly the cardamon) creates such a delicious aroma in the kitchen. I would also highly encourage including the chopped almonds to add some texture and crunch.
My one recommendation for this recipe would be to not use the full amount of the almond butter swirl that Claire gets you to make to decorate the top of the loaf. I put all of the mixture on the top; this led to two small “disasters”—I wasn’t able to make a swirl on top and the top of the loaf didn’t cook as well because it was just a layer of almond butter. Otherwise, another 10/10 dessert by our pal Claire. Will 100% be making this my go-to banana bread recipe from now on.
Julia’s Take
Banana bread was one of the first things I ever baked for someone, plus it’s a quarantine-life fan favourite, so I was really looking forward to trying Claire’s take on this classic loaf.
As we’ve already come to expect from Dessert Person, the combination of flavours (boosting up the ripe banana with almond butter, roasted almonds, and cardamom) and Claire’s incredibly precise instructions (whisking ingredients together in stages to get the ultimate texture from the bake) work to elevate even the simplest recipe. This approach took an old staple like banana bread and managed to make it taste totally new!
Lauren and I had similar issues with the almond butter swirl topping. I ended up with a full layer on the top of my cake that just kept spreading the more I tried to play around with it. I ended up scraping some of the almond butter off, and this meant that the “design” (I use that term loosely…) on the top of my loaf ended up looking like more of an indent than a swirl. Our other sister is most definitely still the artist in the family.
Minor mishaps aside, I loved this loaf so much and will be making it over and over again.
Coming up next week: Poppy Seed Almond Cake!
sisters & saffitz 