Banana-Hazelnut Bread excerpted from MILK STREET BAKES by Christopher Kimball. Copyright © 2024 by CPK Media, LLC. Photograph by Connie Miller of CB Creatives.
Turn your kitchen into the world’s best bakery with this “comprehensive [and] extraordinarily useful” collection of 200 sweet and savory baking recipes from the James Beard Award-winning team at Milk Street.
The American baking repertoire may be unparalleled in our claim to pies, biscuits, and cakes. But step off a plane in London, Mexico City, Istanbul, or Paris, and you realize how much more there we can learn about the art of simple, delicious baked goods.
We found a simple Spanish almond cake that uses no wheat flour. Loaf cakes that balance the sugar with slightly-bitter rye. Super-creamy Basque cheesecake that requires no water bath. Mexican sweet corn cake made in a blender. Or Catalan biscotti, sticky chocolate cake from Sweden, and crispy spinach and cheese borek from Türkiye.
We also include forgotten American recipes such as maple-glazed hermits and new classics such as peanut butter banana cream pie. And we go beyond sweets to include yeasted breads, savoury tarts, pizzas, and flatbreads (some made in a skillet in minutes).
Most of these recipes are easier than you’d think, from beer pretzels to Danish dream cake. But in baking, the little things count—so Milk Street is here to help you avoid pitfalls with recipes that you can count on.
Our promise to you is that you will become the best baker you know!
Milk Street Bakes: A Baking Book with 200 Sweet and Savory Recipes by Christopher Kimball is available at
Banana-Hazelnut Bread
At the now-closed ultra-modern Black Isle Bakery in Berlin, owner Ruth Barry baked a small array of simple but well-crafted treats—homey, inviting goodies such as loaf cakes, cookies, buns and tarts. We thought her banana hazelnut load was especially delicious, the nut and fruit flavours in perfect balance and the crumb extremely moist and tender. It also happens to be dairy- and egg-free. Once cooled, the bread will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to three days; after that, it can be refrigerated for a couple days longer, but bring to room temperature before serving.
Start to finish: 1½ hours (30 minutes active), plus cooling
Makes one 9-inch loaf
98 grams (¾ cup) hazelnuts
210 grams ( 1¾ cups) cake flour)
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon table salt
400 grams (1½ cups) mashed ripe bananas (from 3 to 4 large bananas)
161 grams (¾ cup) white sugar
1/3 cup grapeseed or other neutral oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon turbinado sugar or white sugar
Don’t use underripe bananas. For best flavor and texture, the unpeeled bananas should be darkly speckled on the outside and very soft on the inside. Don’t over-toast the hazelnuts. Aim for lightly golden so the nuts that are chopped and sprinkled on top of the loaf don’t become too dark during baking.
Heat the oven to 350°F with a rack in the middle position. Put the hazelnuts in a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan and toast in the oven until lightly browned, 8 to 10 minutes, stirring once halfway through. Cool to room temperature. If the nuts are skin-on, rub them in a clean kitchen towel to remove as much of the skins as possible (it’s fine if some of the skins remain). Roughly chop 33 grams (¼ cup) of the hazelnuts and set aside.
Mist the loaf pan with cooking spray, then line it with an 8-by-14-inch piece of kitchen parchment, allowing the excess to overhang the long sides of the pan. Mist the parchment with cooking spray.
In a food processor, combine the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, salt and remaining 65 grams (½ cup) hazelnuts. Process until the nuts are finely ground, 30 to 45 seconds. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl, then return the food processor bowl and blade to the base.
To the processor, add the bananas, white sugar, oil and vanilla. Process until smooth, creamy and aerated, about 30 seconds. Add the banana mixture to the dry ingredients and fold with a silicone spatula until just combined. Transfer to the prepared pan and smooth the top. Sprinkle evenly with the turbinado sugar and chopped hazelnuts. Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted at the center comes out clean, 50 to 55 minutes.
Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then lift the loaf out of the pan using the parchment. Set the bread directly on the rack and cool completely. Peel off and discard the parchment before slicing.
Excerpted from MILK STREET BAKES by Christopher Kimball. Copyright © 2024 by CPK Media, LLC. Photograph by Connie Miller of CB Creatives. Used with permission of Voracious, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company. New York, NY. All rights reserved.