Vicki's Banana Nut Bread

Most banana bread recipes hit the same handful of notes. This version goes a different route: half whole wheat flour for nuttiness and body, brown sugar instead of white for caramel depth, and a quietly unusual spice mix of ground ginger and mace. Mace is the lacy outer covering of nutmeg, warmer and less sweet, and it gives this loaf an old-fashioned spice-cake character that nutmeg alone can’t.

A full cup each of chopped pecans and chopped dates packs the loaf with chew and crunch. The dates melt slightly during baking into pockets of caramel sweetness that play against the banana.

The yogurt in the wet ingredients is the secret to the tender crumb. It adds acid that softens the gluten and keeps the bread moist for days, far longer than a standard banana bread.

Pro Tips

• Use overripe bananas. The blacker the skin, the sweeter and more banana-flavoured the bread. Yellow bananas with no spots make a flat-tasting loaf.
• The alternating flour-and-banana addition isn’t optional. Adding all the wet then all the dry develops gluten and toughens the crumb.
• If you can’t find mace, substitute pumpkin pie spice as the directions suggest, or use an equal amount of grated nutmeg with a tiny pinch of allspice.
• Cool in the pan 5 to 10 minutes before transferring to a rack. Turning out a hot quick bread tears the loaf along the bottom.

Variations

• Swap the dates for an equal amount of raisins, dried cranberries, or chopped dried apricots.
• Use walnuts in place of pecans for a sharper, more bitter nut profile.
• Add a half cup of chocolate chips alongside the pecans for a chocolate-banana-nut loaf.