Banana Bread with Heart!

Recipe and How to

Just a fun thing to do! My daughter loves fresh flowers, me too, and while I baked this bread she put together flower arrangements to place around the home.

I used my Banana Bread Recipe but you can use just about any quick bread recipe to make this Bread with a Heart. It was so much fun and what smiles it brought when sliced … And eaten, of course. For the heart I made my Peanut Butter Cake and added a little chopped chocolate. You can use pound cake, make a single layer cake of your choosing, or use cake without frosting or filling from your favorite bakery.

RECIPE

Peanut Butter Cake

Use a 9 inch round cake pan for this recipe
Bake at 350 degrees F for 30-35 minutes until toothpick in the center comes out almost clean

1 and 1/2 Cups cake flour
1 Cup sugar
2 Teaspoons baking powder
1/2 Teaspoon salt
1/4 Cup + one tablespoon organic peanut butter, low sugar
1/4 Cup-less one tablespoon vegetable shortening
2/3 Cup 1%(at least) milk
1 Egg

Optional:
Add red food coloring to the batter to achieve the color you would like.
You may wish to add chopped semi-sweet chocolate morsels to the batter just before baking.

In a large bowl measure the first four ingredients. Lightly spoon cake flour into measuring cup to avoid packing. Whisk the first four ingredients taking care to incorporate the baking powder well. Add the last four ingredients and mix with electric beater for 2 minutes until all ingredients are mixed well. This may take less than 2 minutes. Reminder, the more you beat the batter the more the texture of the baked cake changes, and often becomes dry.

Grease the cake pan with butter or shortening. Cut a piece of parchment to fit in the bottom of the cake pan. Grease under the parchment and on top of the parchment. Flour the pan to complete. Add the batter and smooth to even in the pan. Bake.

Remove the pan from the oven and cool for 10 minutes. Run a knife carefully around the edge of the cake pan and turn the pan over onto a rack. Remove the pan and the parchment paper. Let cool to room temperature and then place into the freezer to firm … not too firm or it will be hard to cut.

Remove from freezer and with a 3 inch heart shaped cookie cutter (open top) cut 6-8 heart shape pieces. Begin with the large part of the heart at the outer edge of the cake and the tip of the heart pointing to the center. The cake will be thicker than the cookie cutter. Press gently until the cutter is all the way through the layer. Place the cut pieces single layer in the freezer.

Banana Bread

Bake for 60-65 minutes or until top center bounces back when slightly touched
Makes one loaf 9 inches by 5 inches

1 3/4 Cup all purpose flour
1 1/4 Teaspoon baking powder
3/4 Teaspoon salt
1/2 Teaspoon baking soda
2 Eggs-room temperature
1/3 Cup shortening
1/2 Cup granulated sugar
1/4 Cup dark brown sugar-packed
2 Tablespoons cream
1 Cup mashed ripe bananas
1 Teaspoon vanilla
1/4 Teaspoon orange extract
2 Teaspoons orange zest
1/4 Cup black walnut pieces

Measure the first four ingredients into a small bowl, whisk and set aside.
In a large bowl beat the two eggs with the shortening until all the shortening is incorporated. This may take a few minutes.
Add the sugars to the egg mixture and beat until well mixed.
Add the cream, bananas, extracts, zest into the egg-shortening-sugar mixture and mix well.
Slowly add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients. Mix until incorporated only.
Stir in nuts.

Grease the loaf pan with butter or shortening. Cut a piece of parchment for the bottom. Grease under and on top of the parchment paper. Flour the pan to complete.

Add about 1/3 of the batter to the bottom of the greased and floured loaf pan. Place the frozen heart shaped pieces into the batter tip down into the batter slightly to stabilize. Line one heart after the other until all are lined up across from narrow end of the pan to narrow end. The loaf pan is 9 inches long and it takes less than 9 heart shape pieces to complete this because each piece will be greater than one inch thick.

Now pour or spoon batter down the sides of the loaf pan. Use a knife to help batter slip along the edge of the pan and heart shapes. Now pour a nice layer of batter over the top of all the hearts.

Bake. My loaf took the entire hour to bake. Remove after baking and cool for about 10-15 minutes.

Now run a knife carefully around the edge of the loaf pan. Turn upside down on a rack and then flip to right side up. Cool until room temperature.