blue artichoke: Banana Bread: Road to the Championship

Once upon a time last year, I set out on a magical journey into a loaf of banana bread. Remember that? This Snackdown Challenge has taken a long time, but my interns and tasting team had to take a few breaks from banana bread. We learned our lesson with the pumpkin cheesecakes. I don’t even know if I finished that challenge or picked a winner; all I know is that it will be a looooooong time before I eat another slice of pumpkin cheesecake. Besides, pumpkin cheesecakes have been supplanted by the far superior pumpkin gooey butter cake from Paula Deen. Have you tried this dessert? It makes pumpkin pie and cheesecake cower in the corner, crying. GC’s mom made one for Thanksgiving, and that’s the pumpkin dessert I want from now on. ‘Cause I’m sick of pumpkin cheesecake, just sick of it. I didn’t want to get burned out on banana bread too, so we took this challenge slowly. And now, finally, I can announce the close of the qualifying round.

We tested 40 banana bread recipes. 40! I stopped giving blow-by-blow updates around banana bread #19. Admit it, you skimmed through the Snackdown stuff, didn’t you? I don’t mind; I found it kind of boring to try to write interesting things about each loaf too. Most were plain banana breads, but some had some special ingredients, such as blueberries, coconut, chocolate chips and peanut butter. Of the 40, 17 were deemed excellent: nine classic banana breads and eight specialty banana breads. The specialty breads will be sidelined for now. There are a few special ingredient duplicates (i.e., two chocolate-chip banana breads and two marbled-chocolate banana breads) that will get their own battle. The remaining specialty banana breads (with additions of cranberries, coconut, butterscotch chips and blueberries) are automatic winners, and keepers. For now, though, we’ll concentrate on the nine classic banana bread finalists.

Grandma’s recipe is the standard by which all others are measured. It’ll be difficult, but the winning recipe must surpass her recipe. Eight recipes have the potential. Stay tuned.

Current battle: banana bread
Backburner battle: brownies
Savory battle: meatloaf

Comments

I cannot -- CANNOT -- believe that your shunning pumpkin cheesecake. I not only made more cheesecakes this year, but have enticed an entirely new group of people to the wonder that is cheesecake.

It hurts, BA, really hurts.

Of course, now I also must try this gooey butter cake of the pumpkin ilk, but as it's now May, that will have to wait until at least September.

Posted by: Red Momo | May 5, 2007 03:05 PM

Red Momo, I officially pass the cheesecake torch to you. I met, and exceeded, my cheesecake quota for the next several years, I think. Cheesecakes now join ice cream on my desserta non grata list. I still haven't fully recovered from my days working at an ice cream store. I can enjoy an ice cream cone every once in a while, but for the most part, I pass. I expect it will be a while before I'm tempted by cheesecake again.

You, now, are the Crowned King of Cheesecake. May your rule be long and beneficent.

Posted by: Blue Artichoke | May 5, 2007 05:32 PM