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Bananas For Banana Bread
Hmmmm…..a bowl of bruised up nasty looking bananas one day away from the grand opening of a fruit fly carnival…what to do? What to do? Banana bread!
The husband is on a pseudo health kick right now. I say pseudo because he thinks if there is a full fruit bowl in the house, that he can walk by and look at, and he’s being healthy. Notice that nowhere in that sentence did I say anything about him eating said fruit. He looks at it every morning when he’s pouring his coffee and every evening as he makes the brain cramping decision of whether to have a bowl of ice cream or inhale half a bag of potato chips. Of course, being a guy, he can do these kinds of things without looking like a horse after a couple of days. I am not that fortunate…I am the one who eats the fruit.
So the other day he’s complaining to me about the “gnarly looking bananas” in the fruit bowl. The reality hits him pretty hard that real bowls of fruit don’t always look like a still life by Paul Cezanne.
So this is how I made the “gnarly looking bananas” disappear and turn into that night’s dessert: Banana Bread.
Ingredients
- 2/3 Cup Granulated Sugar
- 5 Tablespoons (1/3 cup) Unsalted Butter at Room Temperature
- 1 3/4 Cups All-Purpose Flour
- 1 1/4 Teaspoons Baking Powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
- 2 Large Eggs
- 2 Tablespoons Milk
- 2 Ripe Bananas (aka gnarly looking bananas)
- 1/4 – 1/2 Cup Chopped Nuts (walnuts, pecans, or hazelnuts work best)
- 1 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon (optional)
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.
Butter and flour 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 loaf pan. To further reduce sticking, you can also cut a piece of parchment paper the size of the bottom of the pan. Place the parchment paper in the bottom of the pan and butter that as well.
In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar on high speed. Beat for 2 – 3 minutes or until light yellow in color and lighter in texture.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Add the flour, baking powder and baking soda to the butter mixture. Blend until combined.
Slowly add in the eggs and milk, beat to combine.
Fold in the bananas, nuts and cinnamon.
Once thoroughly combined, pour into the buttered and floured loaf pan. Spread the batter evenly.
Bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the loaf comes out clean.
Thanks. Nice basic recipe. Show up at work with some fresh banana brad and you will be a hero. Or eat it all while standing in front of the oven before it has a chance to cool – it melts and holdsbutter really well too:-)
If you only have one or 2 bananas and want to save some up that are going beyond brown just chuck em in the freezer as is until you have a few.
One thing I find with banana bread recipes is to intensify the banana taste without getting mushy bread is use an extra banana or 2 and put them in a no-stick pot and cook them. Let them go to mush and then you let the simmer and reduce the water and you end up with an intense banana liquor type of thing that is great and hasnt thrown your moisture ration out of whack. Some people try to get away with banana extract but I find it adds a fake taste to things and this reduced banana method is great.
And with all cakes etc….a tsp or so of vanilla extract is always in order.