Banana bread W.O. key ingredients

[dc2123]

So I want to make banana bread. I want to experiment a little, but I figure I'll ask some questions before hand.

So I do not have flour or baking powder, and I know I can buy these because they are cheap, but besides the fact that the bread won't rise will that hold it back from anything else?

I was thinking about just using bananas, an egg, a little butter (not a stick like a lot of recipes call for) and a little sugar.

Also could someone explain the reasoning for adding wet to dry ingredients and vice versa. Or does it not matter if everything is mixed at the same time.

 

[Steve Kroll]

Interesting.

Without flour, baking powder, or any other dry ingredient, what you're making is not bread. There is nothing to provide structure or rise.

Think of building a house without a foundation, walls, or a roof. Kind of like that.

 

[Andy M.]

With the ingredients you mentioned, you could make a banana custard. I suppose you could call it banana bread...

 

[GotGarlic]

Regarding wet and dry ingredients, if you dump everything together and then try to mix them, they won't combine thoroughly. You will have pockets of the dough that have more or less egg or seasoning or flour and then the mixture won't cook properly, or you'll get a big hit of salt or something in one bite and none in another.

 

[Dawgluver]

As a non-baker, even I can say that banana bread is really easy to make. I'd go with a tried and true recipe. With only the ingredients you listed, you'd end up with banana slop, it would not bake well.

 

[dc2123]

Could I use flour without the baking powder, or vice versa.

Is flour more of a binder while baking powder is more of a riser?

 

[Andy M.]

Flour is the structure of the bread. Without it there is only a puddle of ingredients. The baking powder, working with the other ingredients, generates carbon dioxide gas that creates little bubbles that make the dough formed by the flour, to rise.

You need both as they need each other to actually create a bread.

 

[Dawgluver]

What Andy said. Check out some of the BB recipes here on DC. They've stood the test of time.

 

[dc2123]

Do I need both baking powder and baking soda. What can be distinguished about the two?

 

[Andy M.]

Some recipes call for both.

Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) generates carbon dioxide gas to make bubbles in the presence of an acidic ingredient. If a recipe does not contain an acidic ingredient, baking powder is used to generate the CO2 gas.

Baking powder is made with baking soda, cream of tartar (an acidic ingredient) and cornstarch. BP provides its own acid with the cream of tartar.

 

[CWS4322]

There are gluten-free recipes that do not use flour, but the recipe does include some sort of "flour-like" ingredient, e.g., coconut flour, ground flax seeds + Chia goop, etc. A search on the 'Net turned up a number of "flourless" banana bread recipes. However, I did not find one that did not include some sort of leavening agent.

 

[Mad Cook]

Do I need both baking powder and baking soda. What can be distinguished about the two?

Basically, you need to follow the recipe. The person who originally devised it did so by making and overcoming mistakes. It's a good idea to profit by his or her work.

 

[bakechef]

Baking is chemistry. Change the chemistry and you change what you get. Every ingredient is there for a specific purpose sometimes more than one purpose.

-Baking soda/baking powder to make it rise
-butter or other fat, moistness and tenderness
-flour to bind everything together and add structure
-eggs aids in rise, helps hold things together so it isn't crumbly

a recipe is created to hopefully combine each component in specific quantities to produce a specific result. The order in which things are mixed also determines the result.

Baking isn't something that can be thrown together without careful measuring, or making substitutions without knowing how they will affect the chemistry.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

You could make yummy cookies with the ingredients you describe. Try this:
Preheat your oven to 425' F. Separate three eggs into yolk and egg white in two bowls. The bowl with the egg whites must not be plastic. Also, there must be absolutely no egg yolk in the egg white bowl. Add 1/4 cup of powdered sugar to the egg whites, along with a tsp. of vanilla extract. Add a pinch of cream of tartar to the egg whites and whip until stiff peaks form (use a mixer to make this chore easier.). Mash 3 bananas until smooth. fold into the egg white mixture.

Plop 2 tbs. of the egg white mixture onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet to make 12, even sized blobs. Place into the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Check the cookies and remove when they are lightly browned on top.

While the cookies are baking, combine 1/4 cup of sugar, 1 tsp. vanilla, and 1/2 tsp of salt to the egg yolks. Beat until smooth. Heat 1 cup of milk over medium heat until it forms a skin on top, but doesn't yet boil. Rapidly stir 1/2 cup of the hot milk to the egg yolk until smooth. Pour that back into the pan, and heat over a low temperature, while stirring, until the mixture thickens.

When the cookies are done, remove them from the cookie sheet and let them cool. Top each with a tsp. of custard, or use the custard as a dip for the banana cookies.

I haven't done this, but have made meringue cookies before. With the banana, this might come out more like mini-soufles. But you never know unless you try.

I believe the famous Sacher Torte is made without flour, so there is precedence.

Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North