One thing I cannot stand is nuts in baked goods. There is something about how the nuts disrupt both the texture and flavor of a baked good when they’re embedded inside that just really doesn’t sit right with me.
But when I saw a recipe for banana bread with pecan streusel in the Miette cookbook, I felt like I had to follow the recipe to the letter. And so I did.
Do you ever wonder, though, where someone got the idea to just throw nuts into perfectly good, smooth batter? Well, I kind of imagined it went something like…
Derek paid close attention to his pastry instructor, Claire. Not just because she was attractive as hell, but also because he genuinely wanted to learn the pastry chef trade and learn it well. She was reviewing the steps to making brownies. The process was pretty simple; the batter was basically a mixture of flour, sugar, eggs, and cocoa powder.
Even Derek would have a hard time messing this up. As they broke off to their individual stations, he couldn’t help but think about Claire’s perky breasts, the tops of which he could just barely see above her apron. He mindlessly threw the ingredients into a bowl and stirred them together. His thoughts kept drifting back to her chest.
He poured the batter into the pan he had greased earlier. The thick, luscious batter rippled across the bottom surface of the pan, smoothing itself out as more batter came flowing out of the bowl. The bowl now empty, Derek was ready to put the pan into the oven.
Just then, Claire’s breasts popped into his head, two round, ample sirens going off like a reminder of something he had forgotten. He carelessly waved his hand, knocking over a canister of walnuts that was stacked perilously at his station. In a panic, Derek reached over to try to grab the canister before it fell. In doing so, he slipped on the tile floor, falling forward and catching his waistband on the corner of the counter. As he fell toward the floor, his waistband stayed hooked on the counter, his pants ripping as he hit the floor with a thud, now in his underwear.
As if the embarrassment of lying sans pants on the floor weren’t enough, the canister of walnuts whose descent he had failed to halt hit the counter, the top flying off and sending a burst of walnuts into the air. They landed in the layer of rich, dark brown batter he had just smoothed out. Derek was horrified. The brownies were supposed to be so simple, and yet he had managed to screw even this easy recipe up.
Claire heard the noise at Derek’s station and came over. As he pulled up his now-tattered pants, he couldn’t help but notice Claire’s face turn slightly pink. Was it the heat? Or did she see something she liked? She saw the calamity that was in Derek’s pan. Not being one to panic in a stressful situation, she did her best to salvage Derek’s creation. She suggested he just throw the entire thing into the oven, even though she was unsure how well walnuts would work in a chocolatey confection like brownies.
Thirty minutes later, the brownies were done. Derek was anxious when he opened the oven door. The delicious smell of chocolate wafted into the air as he grabbed the pan with his oven mitt-covered hand. There were specks of walnut peeking out from the otherwise smooth surface of the brownies. Claire was as nervous as Derek. What if the brownies weren’t delicious? What if this young pastry student’s love of pastry had been squashed by this one incident in her class?
After all the students were finished with baking their brownies, Claire instructed them to allow the brownies to cool. She glanced over at Derek, who looked worried sick. He was so cute when he fretted. His brow all wrinkled, his sinewy biceps showing under his tight T-shirt… wait, was she falling for one of her students? This couldn’t be happening. Must be professional, she told herself.
Meanwhile, Derek started to cut his brownies into squares. He was so nervous that these walnut-tainted brownies would turn out badly. What would Claire think of him, screwing up the most basic of assignments in the class? He took a square and bit into it.
The warm, chewy brownie texture was the first thing he noticed, and then a chunk of walnut followed. The nutty flavor of the walnut strangely enhanced the rich, chocolatey flavor of the surrounding brownie. Derek was relieved and elated about this happy accident. Who knew that throwing nuts into brownies would have such a delicious result? Claire was some kind of visionary.
Claire could see that Derek was happy after biting into his brownie. She loved it when he was happy. His smile was so infectious, it could light up a ballroom with hundreds of people. She walked over and sampled his creation. It was delightful. The nuttiness combined with the chocolate, it was a match made in heaven. Why hadn’t she thought of this combination earlier?
Class was over, and everyone was cleaning up. Derek wanted to thank Claire, so he walked up to her and expressed his gratitude. An inexplicable sensation of heat swept over her as he flashed his smile. She smiled back, but inside there was a fire that had been lit, and her burning desires needed to be fulfilled.
She invited him to her apartment, under the pretense of reviewing the walnut-cum-brownie recipe for future publication. He agreed readily, jumping at the chance to get inside her apartment. And quite possibly her pants.
Derek arrived wearing a button-down shirt, attempting to look nice for his hot pastry instructor. Claire welcomed him into her apartment, noticing he got dressed up for her. They locked eyes as they silently made their way over to the couch. He undid her blouse, revealing the white lace bra she had underneath. Her breasts were overflowing the bra like overfilled water balloons trying to fit into a tiny pair of hands. With one swift motion, Derek reached around the back to undo the clasp, and the bra dropped to the floor like it belonged there.
Claire wanted Derek’s top off now, too. She quickly undid the buttons on his shirt, going down the row of buttons quickly with the dexterity she had gained in her pastry chef training. She threw it off of him as if it were a cape that was encumbering him, and then she pulled off his shirt, revealing his bare, chiseled chest. He must be working out after class, she thought to himself, as she immediately went to undo his belt buckle.
At the same time, he reached for her pants, undoing the button and trying to wriggle them off of her. They were tight around her firm buttocks, and she helped him get them off of her legs, as she sat beside him in only her black panties. As if to reciprocate, she started to pull off his pants once the belt was out of the loops, revealing a tent in his boxer shorts that she could not ignore, especially when she was this close to it. She reached through the hole in his underwear to grab his throbbing member. He let out a small moan as she gripped his member, and he reached under her panties to touch her clitoris. He could feel the moisture underneath her underwear, a misty environment developing between her legs.
They both pulled down their underwear, revealing their naked selves to each other. Their tongues slid past each other, urgently exploring the other person’s mouth as if something got lost in there. A trickle of fluid started to drip out of her vagina, while simultaneously precum started to dribble out of the tip of Derek’s penis. Her hand was all over his shaft, while his hand was parting her labia like the opening of a Ziploc bag whose contents he was eager to reach. Manual stimulation was all good, but they both wanted their bodies connected in a more intimate fashion.
Claire mounted Derek like a pommel horse and aligned her vagina with his penis so that it slid inside effortlessly. She started bouncing up and down, twisting her pelvis around so that she could feel the tip of his tool scraping the coveted G-spot that she could hardly ever reach. Luckily, her current lover’s penis was long enough and curved just right to reach the most hallowed of areas inside the cavern she called her vagina. She continued to thrust, as she felt the waves of pleasure wash over her. The orgasm was nearing, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop her from getting there.
Meanwhile, Derek was feeling his own pleasure, as Claire rode him harder and harder. He could feel her moaning get louder and louder, as their private parts became wetter and wetter the more friction there was between them. His eyes started to roll back into his head, as her circular gyrations produced unbelievable sensations in his groin that reached the tips of his toes. He heard a scream from above him, and he knew that his penis had brought this beautiful woman to climax, her ample bosom pressed into his face. Derek soon felt his own climax nearing, as he started moaning louder, closing his eyes when the moment came. Gobs of semen erupted from his penis like a volcano that had lain dormant for centuries suddenly coming to life.
They collapsed in a heap on the couch, covered in sweat and bodily fluids. Nuts in brownies, who knew it could’ve stirred up such passion?
Well, I have a feeling that the addition of nuts to baked goods actually has a much longer history than that, and it probably wasn’t quite so accidental. But that’s how I imagined it happening.
Anyway, here’s the recipe.
Banana bread with Pecan Streusel
from the Miette cookbook
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 medium bananas, peeled and mashed
1/2 cup pecan pieces
Pecan Streusel
1/2 cup pecan pieces
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cold butter
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Butter and flour four 5×3-inch or two 8×4-inch loaf pans.
- Prepare the streusel by stirring together the pecans, sugar, flour, butter, cinnamon, vanilla extract, and salt until combined, and then covering and refrigerating the mixture.
- Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
- Cream the sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract together until well-combined.
- Whisk in the oil until just combined.
- Add the mashed banana and whisk until just combined.
- Add the flour mixture and pecan pieces and whisk until just combined.
- Divide the batter evenly between the loaf pans.
- Sprinkle the tops of the loaves with the streusel.
- Bake at 350F until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 40 to 45 minutes for the smaller loaves or 45 to 50 minutes for the larger ones.
- Let the loaves cool in the pans for about 20 minutes.
- Remove the loaves from the pans, and wrap in plastic wrap.
You’re supposed to use a food processor for the streusel and then a stand mixer for the banana bread, but since I have neither, I didn’t bother. I just stirred everything by hand and it worked out just fine.
The streusel topping, hand-mixed.
The wet ingredients for the banana bread.
And then the dry ingredients go in.
I divided the batter as evenly as I could into four.
Of course, I can’t forget the streusel topping.
They’re done after 40 minutes in the oven.
The banana bread has a nice crunchy streusel topping.
The inside was nice and moist. I really liked the combination of the crunchy, sweet pecan streusel topping with the moist banana bread underneath. I wasn’t particularly a fan of the pecan pieces inside the banana bread itself, though. Next time, I’ll just stick with the topping and leave the nuts out of the banana bread.
I told you, no nuts in baked goods! Unless they’re on top in a sweet streusel.