Banana Bread

After leaving Baba Louie’s happily filled, we stopped by the SoCo Creamery and picked up 2 pints of ice cream: gingerbread and vanilla.  

Although she travelled all the way from Texas, Ms. P managed to bring about two fantastic desserts.  Ginger bread, which was a bit crumbled but I devoured it.

As you can likely guess from the title of this post, Ms. P’s Banana Bread was the star of the evening.  I was fortunate that she shared the recipe and was willing to let me post it on my blog.

Below is the recipe. It's modified from Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything" (Ms. P’s cooking bible!).

 

8 Tablespoons butter

1 1/4 c all-purpose flour

3/4 cup whole wheat flour (original recipe calls for 2 cups white flour)

1 Teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 cup sugar (original recipe calls for white but I use brown)

2 eggs

3 very ripe bananas, mashed w/ fork until smooth

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan.

In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. In another bowl, cream the butter and beat in the eggs and bananas.  Stir the wet mixture into the dry ingredients; do not mix more than necessary. Gently stir in the vanilla and nuts (or whatever else you want to put in).

Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake for 45 to 60 minutes, until nicely browned. A toothpick inserted in the center of the bread will come out fairly clean, but banana bread is excessively moist compared to other breads. Do not overcook. Cool on a rack for 15 minutes before removing from the pan.

Hungry yet?