wrote in message ...
It came out heavy and dense, but with a decent rise (~50%), and fully
cooked,
but very chewy and moist. I am thinking it may be the effect of the
amalayse
in the bananas. In general what is the desired effect of adding them
to
breads?

Further....Using wholewheat flour in such kind of fruited dough will
usually result in denser bread with minimal volume expansion.
It is exacerbated by the ballast effect of moist fruits that are also
fibrous in nature.

If you find this line of experiment interesting and would like to see
improvement in volume ,how about using high gluten flour instead of
wholewheat flour.
Or if you really prefer whole wheat flour, you can fortify that with
vital wheat gluten say by adding 30-60 grams of wheat gluten to a
kilogram of whole wheat flour.
Then use that as the base flour for your fruit containing sourdough
baking experiments.
The added gluten will strenghen the whole wheat flour enabling it to
carry ballast materials.

"Dave Bazell" wrote in message ...
As a physicist myself, I am interested in the prospect of
alternative energy
sources. If cold fusion can be a research topic, why not warm
sourdough
banana bread? It could be a major income producer in certain
Central
American countries with excess bananas.

I doubt if those banana (producing )republics would care about
sourdough banana bread . If they happen to prefer such baked
items,they would rather use bakers yeast( if they want to make a
leavened raised banana bread) for that purpose which is more
convenient for them.
But in other countries banana bread are usually chemically leavened.It
can be classified as quick bread, by using baking soda and baking
powder instead.
Besides in those places sourdough is not as popular as in temperate
western countries .

BTW,bananas is a popular ingredient in many bakery products.Among the
applications a
It is used to make banana cake, banana muffins and quick bread, banana
tarts and tortes,, banana ice cream, gateaux bananas., banana filled
pastries,etc.
Indeed, there are plenty of bakery recipes that uses pureed ripe
bananas as ingredient and it had the general effect of producing a
moist eating baked product. .
And you can find also many recipes of bakery products in the web using
bananas...

Meanwhile the excess bananas in those banana producing countries are
usually wasted. Several years ago,I have seen some bunches of excess
substandard bananas that did not pass export(some intact, others
rotting) in the field and being plucked,kicked and thrown by kids
like toys.
Most of those undersize or below quality standard bananas are sold
locally. Those already rotting ones are used as compost.
In other countries such as in Asia , harvested bananas are sold
to food manufacturers to make banana catsup , candied banana
slices, snack chips,and even banana wine and vinegar.

Roy

Roy Basan wrote:

Or if you really prefer whole wheat flour, you can fortify that with
vital wheat gluten say by adding 30-60 grams of wheat gluten to a
kilogram of whole wheat flour.

Yes, I have gluten, I use it in breads for relatives who like a lighter
whole wheat bread, I don't use refined flours anymore for anything.
Personally I like breads kind of heavy and don't add gluten to mine unless
the amount of additatives is really high and without the gluten the bread
will just tear itself apart.

But that is usually a matter of not adding them in at the right time. I used
to put them in right away, but alter found it works much better if you fully
develop the dough and then add the nuts or what ever and then knead it a few
times, this was all covered in the village baker as well.

--
Cliff Stamp
http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sstamp/

The one unforgivable sin, the offence against one's own integrity,
is to accept anything at all simply on authority -- Maureen Johnson Long

Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm. -- Publilius Syrus