by Kathryn Pauline 18 Comments
Lately, I’ve been obsessively trying to perfect my recipe for lokmeh (also known as lokum or Turkish delight). It all started last summer,when I was leafing through an old Assyrian community cookbook that my aunt Masy lent me, when I found a recipe for orange blossom and pistachio lokmeh. The resulting candies were tasty, but the recipe called for gelatin instead of cornstarch, and they weren’t quite the texture I was after. So I started researching Turkish delight recipes, and made about fifteen different batches, until I finally came up with something I was happy with.
I might post my lokmeh recipe sometime soon, but I’m getting ahead of myself, because this post is not about the high-maintenance, fast-paced, high-stress world of candy making (definitely an activity made for off-the-clock floor brokers and brain surgeons). This is a post about the lowest maintenance dessert of all time.
After obsessing over my orange blossom and pistachio lokme recipe for months, I was craving something a little less demanding with the same flavors, and that’s when I googled “orange blossom banana bread.” I was so happy to see Adrianna Adarme’s beautiful recipe for banana bread infused with orange blossom water, which inspired me to use my own tried-and-true recipe, infusing the batter with a little bit of orange blossom water,mixing in chopped pistachios, and topping the whole thing with bright green ground pistachios.
This is usually the part in the post where I explain why you absolutely must try this recipe. But if you’ve ever encountered it, you know that orange blossom water speaks for itself. If you haven’t tried orange blossom water, it tastes just like it sounds: it’s reminiscent of oranges, but with a definitively floral bouquet. It’s like if some really fancy cosmetic line made a subtly orange-scented perfume (one that didn’t scream “generic orange-scented dishwasher detergent!!”).In other words, orange blossom water makes plain old orange juice, orange slices, and orange peel extract seem astringent, bland, and brassy. Don’t get me wrong, I love citrus and have been known to encourage people to eat whole lemons (here and here), but it’s also nice to experience the flavors of citrus fruits in a context totally different from what makes them citrusy.
pistachio orange blossom banana bread
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour and 15 minutes
- Yield: 1 medium loaf
Ingredients
- 1 to 1 1/4 cup mashed banana from 3 very overripe bananas *
- 3 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup olive oil (not extra virgin olive oil; feel free to substitute more butter, or another neutral-flavored oil)
- 2 room temperature eggs
- 2 teaspoons orange blossom water **
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 2 cups sifted flour (about 1 3/4 cups unsifted)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 cup chopped raw pistachios
- 1 1/2 tablespoons coarsely ground pistachios for the top ***
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350° F.
- Butter a 8×4″ loaf pan. ****
- In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the mashed bananas together with the melted butter and olive oil until very well combined. Add the eggs, orange blossom water, sugar, and salt, and whisk together until the whole thing is completely incorporated.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and baking powder, and then pour in the pistachios.
- Add the wet mixture to the flour mixture and stir to combine. Do not over-mix (stop mixing as soon as there are no large lumps).
- Spoon the mixture into the loaf pan.
- Sprinkle the top with the ground pistachios.
- Bake for about 1 hour. Start checking for doneness after about 50 minutes, by inserting a toothpick or wooden skewer into the center of the loaf. If it comes out with batter, it needs more time, but if it comes out with just some crumbs, it’s ready to take out.
- Remove from the pan and cool on a rack for at least 30 minutes before cutting and serving.
Notes
* I’ve also tested this recipe with 1 1/4 cups of mashed banana, and it works great too, so if you have a little extra, feel free to leave it in. It may take a little longer to bake through, and you might need to tent it in foil for the last few minutes of cooking to keep it from browning too much at the edges. The final product will have a slightly less bready, more pudding-like consistency. Be absolutely sure to line the pan with parchment (see below) if you add extra banana, because the banana bread will want to stick.
** Feel free to add more orange blossom water, if you’d like. I really don’t like when there’s too much fower water, so I usually stick with 2 teaspoons, but some people prefer adding more like 1 to 2 tablespoons. I never add more than 1 tablespoon. It’s totally up to you!
*** The pistachios that are mixed into the loaf should simply be chopped, but the ones sprinkled on top should be ground (in other words, very finely chopped). You can use a food processor, a nut grinder, or simply a chef’s knife (I like to simply use the crumbs left behind from chopping the pistachios). It’s okay if there are a few larger pieces sprinkled on top, it just looks prettier with mostly ground pistachios.
**** Feel free to instead use a 9×5″ loaf pan if you’re very worried about spillage. But if you follow the recipe carefully, the batter should be viscous enough that it won’t overflow, but will instead puff up into a beautiful, tall loaf as it bakes. If you use a 9×5 loaf, check it for doneness about 5 to 10 minutes earlier. If your pan isn’t nonstick (or is very scratched-up nonstick), make a parchment sling for easy removal (butter the pan, place the sling, and add more butter to the parchment). Simply trace a butter knife around the bare sides and lift it out with the parchment flaps.
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Reader Interactions
Comments
RebeccaThis recipe turned out perfectly!
★★★★★
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- Kathryn Pauline
aw yay, thank you Rebecca!! 😀
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- Zoe
Hi, I want to make this recipe dairy free. How would you replace the butter?
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- Kathryn Pauline
Oh great question! Feel free to replace the 3 tablespoons butter with 2 more tablespoons olive oil.
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- Jess
Has anybody used roasted and salted pistachios? I don’t have raw
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- Kathryn Pauline
While I do prefer raw here, you can absolutely experiment with using roasted and salted, especially if you tend to like sweet and savory desserts. I would cut back slightly on the amount of salt in the batter (by just a pinch or so). And I’d skip sprinkling roasted pistachios on top of the banana bread, otherwise they will end up too toasted by the time the loaf bakes through. Raw walnuts also work really wonderfully here, if you’d rather use those. Hope you enjoy, whatever you end up trying!
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- Jeanie
I made this last night with 3/4 cup sugar (I tend to prefer things a little less sweet than many people so reduce sugar in most recipes by default) and swapped plain low-fat yogurt for the olive oil. This banana bread is so lovely! I am off work today and it is taking a great deal of willpower not to just devour the whole loaf!
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- Kathryn Pauline
Ooh wow, that sounds so much healthier!! I’ve gotta try those substitutions sometime! I’m glad you enjoyed it, and hope you had a nice day off! 🙂
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- Plamena
This is a fantastic recipe. I made it as written. The flavors of pistachio and oange blossom work surprisingly well with banana.
For those of you who are curious about making this gluten free, I also tried a version using 1 cup almond meal, 1 cup gluten free flour blend (Bob’s Red Mill), and an extra 1/2 tsp baking powder. The result was truly fantastic. It rose every bit as dramatically as the wheat flour version and was chewy and moist, not crumbly. Highly recommend!
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- Kathryn Pauline
Aw I’m so glad you enjoyed it! 😀
And thank you so much for sharing your gluten free adaptation. Bob’s Red Mill 1-for-1 is truly miraculous, and I love that you added a bit of extra baking powder (the only downside is how dense gluten free blends sometimes bake up. Perfect compromise!)
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- Brenda
Great recipe! I just turned down the sugar a notch (3/4 cup), and it was perfect!
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- Kathryn Pauline
Oh that’s awesome! I need to try it with less sugar myself so I can add that super helpful note to the recipe—I love the idea, thank you so much for sharing it!
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- Stella
Made it without a hitch. Turned out delicious! Thank you.
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- Kathryn Pauline
Woohoo! That’s so awesome, and you’re so welcome!! 😀
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Looks good, maybe I’ll make it for my Bible study girls this Tuesday. By the way, that took some tenacity making 15 batches of loukom. I think I gave up
After 3 tries. 😬Reply
- Kathryn Pauline
Thanks Hilda, hope you and your friends enjoy it! 😄❤️ Haha, you totally understand the loukom struggle—I definitely wanted to give up a few times (and normally would have, but I became totally obsessed with figuring it out).
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- Bev
Would this work with almond flour or oatmeal flour? Trying to stay away from bleached white flour, when possible.
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- Kathryn Pauline
That’s a great question Bev! I’ve never made this particular loaf with gluten free/alternative flours, so I can’t say for sure, but I’ve done a lot of gluten free baking for friends, so I have some advice. The flavors of almond flour and oatmeal flour would work great here, but unfortunately they don’t mimic the effect of gluten very well; they tend to make things really crumbly. But because this recipe has eggs and bananas (which will both help it set up), you might get away with using almond flour or oatmeal flour, especially if you don’t mind some crumbliness. If you try it, I’d love to hear how it goes!
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