Banana Peach Bread

April arrives with the Lowcountry's annual promise: warmth, light, the azaleas holding their last blooms like a woman holding the final note of a song. The library is nearly at full capacity now — the masks remain but the fear has softened into caution, which is a healthier cousin of fear, less anxious, more manageable, the kind of thing you can live beside without being consumed by it.

I am writing the cookbook every morning — Chapter Two now, which is about Mama's cornbread, which is about the cast-iron skillet, which is about the transfer of the skillet from Mama to me, which happened not on a specific date but gradually, the way all essential transfers happen: through use, through need, through the moment when the person who owns the thing can no longer lift it and the person who loves the thing reaches for it and the reaching is the receiving.

James is in his final weeks at the College of Charleston. He has been accepted to USC Law with a scholarship that covers half the tuition, which Robert celebrates with the particular pride of a man who knows what law school costs and who sees in the scholarship not just money saved but merit recognized. Elise has been mentioned with increasing frequency and decreasing casualness — she is no longer a name in a sentence but a presence in the narrative, and the presence is permanent.

Mama was lucid on Wednesday — a full day of clarity, from morning grits to evening soup. She told me a story about her mother, my grandmother, a woman named Josephine who made biscuits every morning of her married life and who considered the making of biscuits a form of prayer. "She talked to God while she kneaded," Mama said. "And God talked back through the rising." The sentence was perfect — theologically, culinarily, spiritually — and I wrote it in the journal immediately, because the sentence is a chapter of the cookbook, and the chapter wrote itself.

I made cornbread in the cast-iron skillet — Chapter Two's recipe, researched by cooking, written by eating, the method of a woman who does not separate the academic from the practical because the practical is the academic, and the skillet is the textbook, and the cornbread is the thesis.

Writing Chapter Two meant cooking through it, and cooking through it meant the skillet stayed warm most of the week — first the cornbread, then, on the afternoon I transcribed Mama’s story about Josephine and the biscuits and the rising, this banana peach bread, which is a different kind of prayer but a prayer nonetheless. I needed something that asked something of me — the mashing, the folding, the waiting — because Mama’s clarity on Wednesday had left me grateful in a way that wanted occupation, and baking is the right occupation for gratitude that does not yet have its words.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 60 min | Total Time: 1 hr 15 min | Servings: 10 slices

Ingredients

3 very ripe bananas, mashed (about 1 1/4 cups)
1 cup diced fresh or thawed frozen peaches (about 1 medium peach)
1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Instructions

Preheat. Heat your oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x5-inch loaf pan with butter or nonstick spray and set aside.
Mash the bananas. In a large bowl, mash the ripe bananas until mostly smooth with just a few small lumps remaining. The ripeness carries the sweetness — don’t rush past the mashing.
Combine the wet ingredients. Stir the melted butter into the mashed bananas until incorporated. Add the sugar, beaten eggs, and vanilla extract, mixing until the batter comes together smoothly.
Whisk the dry ingredients. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
Fold together. Add the dry ingredients to the banana mixture and stir gently until just combined — a few streaks of flour are fine. Overmixing will tighten the crumb. Fold in the diced peaches last.
Bake. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and smooth the top. Bake for 55 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and the top is deep golden brown. If the top browns too quickly, tent loosely with foil after 40 minutes.
Cool. Let the bread rest in the pan for 10 minutes before turning it out onto a wire rack. Allow it to cool for at least 20 minutes before slicing — the interior continues to set as it cools, and patience here is part of the method.

Nutrition (per serving)

Banana Peach Bread — The Skillet Taught Me Everything I Know About Baking