WHEN THE HEAT GIVES YOU BLACK BANANAS...

It's hot out there.

Greek Chorus: How hot is it?

Well, it's hotter than it was last Friday when I made some cool and tasty treats for a few unexpected visitors before heading into the melting temperatures to get to class: grapefruit sorbet and thai iced bubble tea.

It might not seem to make sense at first but today's high temperatures mean one thing, banana bread. Summer means ripe fruit, but it also means you've got to eat it fast or risk those pesky little fruit flies. Some bananas purchased a few days ago are pushing to the start of the line...

But I'm not the only one with banana bread recipes on the brain. This time of year seems to inspire a lot of people staying in out of the sun with newfound time to inspect their abodes and come across slowly rotting fruit! In fact there are so many recipes to choose from-- where does one even start?

Here are some recipes from various blogs and other sites, their main differences and significant variations:

Anne's Food's recipe:
3-4 bananas, ~1¼ cups wholemeal & plain flour, ~1 cup muscovado sugar, ~1 2/3 cup veg. oil, 3 eggs

Seriously Good's recipe:
3 bananas, 2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, ¼ cup yogurt, 6 tablespoons butter, 2 eggs

DLTK-TEACH's recipe:
3 bananas, 2 cups flour, 1 cup sugar, ½ cup shortening, 4 teaspoons sour milk, 2 eggs

Elise.com's recipe:
3-4 bananas, 1½ cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 1/3 cup melted butter, 1 egg

Diana's Kitchen recipe:
3 bananas, 2 cups flour, 1 cup sugar, ½ cup shortening, 2 eggs

All Recipes.com's recipe:
2 1/3 cups bananas, 2 cups flour, 3/4 cup brown sugar, ½ cup butter, 2 eggs

Breadnet.net's banana bread recipes were the most interesting to me--they feature 20 different types of banana bread. Among the most interesting: sour cream banana bread, fermented banana bread, easy banana bread (though anything with tofu and poppy seeds doesn't seem easy), Bermuda banana bread, banana-pineapple banana bread, banana-chocolate tea bread, banana blueberry bread, apple banana bread, and the not particularly adventurous but I'm sure quite enjoyable banana chocolate chip bread.

In the end, I passed on the recipes above and went with Mark Bittman's recipe from How To Cook Everything (below). It's the coconut that got me, I love it. The result? Tasty but I'd have added more banana. I'll be finishing off the rest of my overripe fruit with the sour cream recipe above after class.

Banana Bread, How To Cook Everything, p. 246

I love all banana bread (especially toasted, the next day, with peanut butter), but I have been making them for thirty years and I do think this one is the ultimate- the coconut is what doesw it, although the butter helps too.

8 Tablespoons (1 stick) Butter, plus some for pan-greasing
½ Cups (~7 oz.) All-Purpose Flour
½ Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1 Teaspoon Salt
1½ Teaspoons Baking Powder
3/4 Cup Sugar
2 Eggs
3 Very Ripe Bananas, mashed with fork until smooth
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
½ Cup Chopped Walnuts or Pecans
½ Cup Grated Dried Unsweetened Coconut

Procedure:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease 9x5-inch loaf pan. Mix together the dry ingredients. Cream the butter and beat in the eggs and bananas. Stir this mixture into the dry ingredients; do not mix more than necessary. Gently stir in the vanilla, nuts, and coconut.

Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake for 45 to 60 minutes, until nicely browned. A toothpick inserte into the center of the bread will come out fairly clean when it is done, but because of the bananas this bread will remain moister than most. Do not overcook. Cool on a rack for 15 minutes before removing from the pan. To store, wrap in waxed paper.

If you're not convinced about making hot bread you're welcome to duplicate the sorbet and bubble tea! The heat made me lazy, didn't even check my standby, The Ultimate Ice Cream Book-- instead I Googled "grapefruit sorbet" and grabbed the first link, which happens to be from About.com.

Sorbet Au Pamplemousse, About.com
1½ Cups Sugar
1 Cup Water
2-1/3 Cups Strained, Fresh Ruby Red Grapefruit Juice

Procedure:

Stir the 1½ cups sugar and cup of water together in a saucepan. Place over low heat and stir until the sugar dissolves. Increase heat to med-high and boil for 30 seconds without stirring. Remove from heat and pour in heatproof bowl and cool completely. When cooled, cover and refrigerate 1 hour.

Pour the grapefruit juice into a large bowl and stir in 1 cup of syrup. Taste and add 1-3 tablespoons of more syrup, if needed. Cover and place in the freezer. When well chilled, transfer to an ice-cream maching and process according to manufacturer's directions

N.B. I reduced the amount of sugar a tad (I almost always reduce the sugar in recipes except when I'm in class) and added a bit more grapefruit juice (red grapefruits are sweet enough) and didn't chill it completely (I needed grapefruit sorbet NOW!) and it was a little more tart and slushy but still delicious and refreshing.

If I hadn't been so lazy I would have definitely used Bruce Weinstein's recipe from The Ultimate Ice Cream Book because it blends the fruit in a processor and uses the pulp in the final product-- when it comes to the citrus juice section I'm a pulp person (though I only do OJ with bagels). As it was, I used my metal juicer for the recipe above. The following recipe calls for egg whites. Some interesting variations are Grapefruit Campari Sorbet (add ½ cup Campari with fruit) and Grapefruit Poblano Sorbet (add ½ cup chopped, roasted poblano chiles to the blender with the fruit-- to roast chiles put under broiler, turning often til skin is charred all over, put in a paper bag, seal and rest 15 minutes so skins should peel off easily; remove seeds).

Grapefruit Sorbet, The Ultimate Ice Cream Book, p. 160

White grapefruits can be very tart; pink ones a little sweeter, and reds, sweet as sugar. Let your taste be your guide.

2 Large Grapefruits
2/3 Cup Sugar
3 Tablespoons Water
2 Large Egg Whites

To prepare the grapefruits, cut off the ends of the fruit so they sit flat on a cutting board. Then cut down the sides following the curve of the fruit, removing the rinds and the white pith beneath. When the rind and pith are all removed, hold the fruit in one hand over a bowl and use a small paring knife, in your other hand to cut between the membranes, letting the clean grapefruit sections fall into the bowl. Take care not to cut through your hand!

When all the sections are cut away, squeeze the remining fruit pulp in your hand to remove any residual juice. Pour the grapfruit segments and juice into a blender and blend for 10 seconds to chop up the fruit. Set aside.

Combine the sugar and water in a small saucepan and place over low heat. Stir until the sugar dissolves. Raise the heat and boil the syrup for 1 minute, then rovmove from the heat. Lightly beat the egg whites with a whisk or an electric beater until foamy, about 10 seonds. Slowly beat in the hot sugar syrup. Continue to beat until the meringue cools down slightly. Add the grapefruit juice and pulp. Cover and refrigerate until cold or overnight. The mixture may separate, leaving foam on top, but it will incorporate into the sorbet when it freezes.

Stir the chilled mixture, then freeze in 1 or 2 batches in your ice cream machine according to the manufacturer's instructions. When finished, the sorbet will be soft but ready to eat. For firmer sorbet, transfer to a freezer-safe conttainer and freeze at least 2 hours.