...find a use for over-ripe bananas?

[southeast-isher]

thanks all, banana bread sounds tasty. will get making some when i'm next in the kitchen. cool.

[Milims]

It's really easy and it freezes well. I tend to make it into buns rather than a loaf as you can take out of the freezer only what you want to eat rather than feeling like you have to eat a whole cake! They also make rather lovely "instant" puddings with custard or cream on them

[indy]

baked in the oven with custard on top and a little demerara sugar!!

[southeast-isher]

You're all legends. Thank you very much.

* gets his cooking gloves on *

[chickenjane]

Try Dehydrating them. Dried banana is fab. (not at all like the pale yellow synthetic things that you can buy)
They actually do better when over ripe than normal cos of the higher sugar content.
you can dry them to a rich chewy texture, or, if you want to make sure they will keep for a longer time dry them til crisp.
If you haven't got a dehydrator an Aga/rayburn will do or even an ordinary oven on v low heat.
Slice or mash or keep whole & place on grease proof papaer. Smaller bits, will of course dry more quickly.

[boboff]

I got two big boxes for £2 after new year and on searching found this recipe for wine which I am doing as we speak. Fingers crossed. ( at banana.org!) check it out for lots of other really good recipes.

One of the problems of making banana wine is that bananas will lose their aroma once you process them into wine. Here's my technique of making banana wine that retains its aroma.

Per one gallon wine:

4 lbs bananas, Chiquita or Dole
2.25 lbs brown sugar
3 tsp acid blend
1 tsp Yeast nutrient
1 packet complete enzyme
1 packet wine yeast, Lalvin D47
enough clean cold water

Peel off bananas and place unto large pressure cooker. Add 2 tsp acid blend, and mash it. Add 1 cup water. Seal off pressure cooker and put on high heat until the relief valve pops up. Then set to medium heat and cook for 15 minutes. Then take pressure cooker to kitchen sink and quickly cool down by running cold tap water over pressure cooker for 5 minutes. Remove cover, add 2 cups clean cold water, mix, then add 1 tsp acid blend and 1 packet complete enzyme. Place cover back, and let stand for 2 hours.

Explanation: The above steps has not been done by any wine makers that I know of, and if they did, they must have read my recipe or posting elsewhere. The above steps illustrates a simple acid hydrolysis using ordinary kitchen tools. We know that bananas already have sugar but it still has a lot of complex carbohydrates that can make wine cloudy. The low acid at high temperature and pressure breaks down the starches and other complex carbohydrates in the banana into sugars, increasing the yield of sugar. The next step where we have added complete enzyme (composed of amylase, pectic enzyme and amylo-glucosidase) will further breakdown other starches and carbohydrates and pectins to help make very clear wine, and also increase yield of sugars from banana's complex carbohydrate components, those that have escaped acid hydrolysis step. The enzymatic reactions using amylases are best done at temperature of 122 deg F, and the above step of cooling down should end up at that range of temperature. The resulting mixture would be pinkish in color with very strong banana aroma.

Open pressure cooker, add 2.25 lbs of sugar, and enough clean water to make one gallon and 1 pint. Stir to dissolve the sugar. You may need to warm up slightly to dissolve the sugar as you stir. Cover and let it cool until as warm as body temperature.

Transfer the contents unto your primary fermenter, add 1 tsp yeast nutrient, the yeast, and stir. Cover the primary fermenter to keep out flies, then after 5 days transfer unto the secondary fermenter that has an air trap. Rack off after a month, and then rack off again after 2 more months. The wine should be drinkable at this stage, but one year after you started fermentation, it would taste really good. (Primary and secondary fermenters are not to be confused with alcoholic and malo-lactic fermentation. To understand these terms, check out Jack Keller's site: http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/glossary.asp)

Note that there is no need to use any sulfites or campden tablets as we basically have sterilized the bananas during the pressure cooking process. This makes for a wine that is drinkable in quicker time, and the only sulfites on it will be naturally coming from bananas. Minimum sulfite content, are good for the 2% of the population who are sensitive to sulfites.

[red]

i make banana loaf, banana muffins or banana icecream

[marshlander]

I knew I'd read something about bananas on here! Just had a home delivery and I've muddled up my quantities - I've got 32 bananas to use and there's only the two of us!

Question about freezing them, should they be whole, sliced or mashed? do I need to put lemon juice on them?

[darkbrowneggs]

Just to give yourself a treat

Peel a banana per person
cut in half lengthways
Sprinkle with brown sugar
pour over a little liquid preferrably dark rum
Bake in oven or put under grill till softened
Serve with ice cream or cream, or both

Yummy

[Berti]

my favorites:

1 sliced frozen banana per person, put in blender, add some liquid (milk or plantmilk or the like)
blend well untill rather stiff but all pieces of banana gone fine.
pour some maple syrup over it and add some chopped pecans or walnuts.

next one is my special treat and sometimes even breakfast:
1 sliced frozen banana
1 tablespoon peanut butter
1 tablespoon cocoa (the real thing)
2 tablespoons shelled hemp seeds or oatmeal or both (optional)
maybe some dates, soaked and chopped.
put in blender, add some liquid like above.
serves 1 happily :) gives a bunch of energy for quite a while!