I wasn’t planning on posting these mini loaves. I made them on a whim last weekend, thinking they’d make a good snack to take to work. It turns out this is the greatest banana bread ever. Seriously.

I used the Olive & Gourmando recipe from The Art of Living According to Joe Beef. I’ve had the book since Christmas and have been eyeing this recipe ever since. I hesitated to make it because it seemed a little too involved for banana bread. I mean, it’s supposed to be a “quick” bread, right?  Turns out the extra steps were totally worth it. Unlike a typical banana bread, where baking powder is added to dry ingredients, this recipe calls for adding baking soda to sour cream before mixing it into the batter. On top of this unusual step, the recipe also called for microwaving the bananas to extract the juices and then reduce the juice by half. I don’t have a microwave so I heated the bananas over a double boiler, which worked very well.

The flavour was rich, the texture light and moist at the same time. Even days later these mini loaves tasted incredible. So I snapped a quick to prove to you that although this banana bread must be tried.

O & G’s Banana Bread

• 1/2 cup sour cream (room temperature)
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 4 ripe bananas
• 1/2 cup unsalted  butter (room temperature)
• 1 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 2 eggs (room temperature)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1 tsp cardamom
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp salt

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease  8 mini loaf molds, set aside.
2. Mix the sour cream and the baking soda together, set aside. 
3. Over a double boiler, gently heat the banana for 5 minutes. Place the bananas in a fine mesh sieve and strain out the juices, you should get 1/4 to 1/2 cup of juice. In a small sauce pan  over medium reduce the juice by half, then return the juice to the banana and mash the bananas (don’t puree). 
4. In a large bowl beat the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer. Add the eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla. Stir in the bananas with a spatula, then the sour cream mixture. 
5. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, spices and salt together. Fold the flour into the banana/butter mixture. 
6. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf molds. Bake for 30 minutes, until a tester comes out clean. Let cool in the molds for 15 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.