My neighbor told me I was overmixing my banana bread batter

She watched me beat it for two minutes and said I was activating too much gluten, so I switched to just folding it until combined and now my loaves actually stay fluffy instead of turning out like bricks, anyone else had a simple tip like that totally change their results?

2 comments

2 Comments

rivera.holly1d ago

My sister actually gave me the same advice last year and it was like a lightbulb went off. I had been making dense loaves for years and just thought banana bread was supposed to be heavy. The first time I folded the flour in with a spatula until it just came together, maybe 15 seconds of stirring, I could not believe how light and soft the crumb was. It made me wonder what other basic cooking rules I was breaking without knowing. Did you ever find yourself changing another recipe after realizing how big of a difference one small tweak made?

fiona_johnson821d ago

Oh man, have you ever tried the same thing with pancake batter? lol I used to mix mine until it was totally smooth and wondered why my pancakes were tough. Now I leave it lumpy and barely stir it, total game changer. Also learned the hard way that overmixing muffin batter turns them into hockey pucks, so I just count to 10 stirs and walk away. Feels wrong at first but the payoff is huge.