The Banana Cookbook: 50 Simple and Delicious Recipes by Sam Brooks

The Banana Cookbook: 50 Simple and Delicious Recipes by Sam Brooks

My Rating: ★★★

I received a copy from Andrews McMeel Publishing through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Sam Brooks has put together a book full of easy recipes, including a variety of vegan and gluten free options, that center around delicious bananas. Ranging anywhere from a classic loaf of banana bread to ice-cream and delicious iced banana coffee, there are a variety of recipes that covers everyone’s interests.

If you are someone with a nut allergy like me, you’ll be happy to find that there are several nut free options throughout the book. However, quite a few of those options will require you to simply omit the nuts that are used to garnish the final product. There are some recipes that will be difficult to get around, such as peanut butter based recipes, as substituting peanut butter with cashew, almond, or sunflower seed butter will create a much drier final product than the author intended.

One of the things that I liked about this book is the mouthwatering pictures that accompany the recipes. It’s one thing to read a recipe and think about making it, but there’s something about seeing a picture that really entices you to check out the recipe and get you pumped about making it. This is why I was disappointed to discover that the book is full of stock images rather than photos taken of the products of these recipes. Some of the pictures can pass, but there are some that are clearly not what you’ll get when you make the recipe.

I also wish that there were savory recipes included in the book. For a book that views bananas as a “new” staple, it’s odd that savory options are so overlooked. Otherwise, I did enjoy the book and look forward to trying some of the recipes. I’m looking forward to giving the iced banana coffee a go since it combines two of my favorite things: coffee and bananas. I’ve also been looking for a new tried and true banana bread recipe, so I’m excited to bake the one included in the book and seeing how it turns out.