Banana Bread!

So, quick moment of truth… I can’t spell Bananas without thinking of that dang Gwen Stefani song… (B-A-N-A-N-A-S)

I decided to make some banana bread, and after looking around, found a recipe that seemed pretty dang good…. it looked easy, didn’t require any super special ingredients…and made an appropriate sized recipe.

To start off, you’re going to need some over-ripe bananas. If you don’t have some lying around, they actually sell them already over-ripe at the grocery store… our local Kroger had them for 29 cents a pound… You’ll probably need 5-6 bananas.

To start things off, preheat the oven to 350 and lightly spray a 9x5 pan with baking spray. Then, peel all of your bananas and put them into some sort of measuring device that will let you se when you have 2-1/3 Cups.

Grab a mashing device, and mash the bananas up a good bit. You can really use anything. Potato masher, your hands, beer bottle, spoon, or… a rubber spatula.

Now that you have the ‘nanners mashed up, it’s time to get out the mixer and the softened butter. I think it might be a good idea to just always keep a few sticks of butter softened and “on the ready”. A lot of the baked goods that I like have two main things in common. They require softened butter, and they take at least an hour to cook. So, a pound cake that take an hour and a half to bake takes another hour and a half waiting for the dang butter to soften... Solution = Always keep softened butter ready.

Anyhow. Cream together 1/2 Cup of butter and 3/4 Cup brown sugar.

After they are creamed together nicely, add your mashed bananas and your eggs. (Remember from the last pound cake recipe… you should beat your eggs before adding them to them them incorporate into the mix.)

After the wet ingredients are mixed together, you can remove the bowl from the mixer. You won’t need the mixer again. Meanwhile, mix your dry ingredients together. That’s 2 Cups of all purpose flour, 1/4 TSP Salt and 1 TSP of baking soda. Add the dry to the wet.

Now, mix the dry and wet together just enough to make sure that the dry stuff is wet. Do it by hand to make sure that you don’t overmix it.

This is about what you should be looking at. Slightly thicker than a batter… but not as thick as a dough… Now, all that’s left is to toss it into your 9x5 pan and cook it for an hour… or so.

Mine took about an hour and a half.. but I was baking the stuffed peppers at the same time.. After you can insert a toothpick into the tallest point of the “bread” and have it come out clean, it’s done. Take it out of the oven and let it sit in the pan on a cooling rack for ten minutes before dumping it out of the pan.

This stuff was tasty. The outer crust was just the right amount of chewy.. the inside was nice and moist… because of all of the bananas inside when you first cut it open, you might think it’s not cooked all of the way… but.. it’s just awesome. Don’t get confused.

I’m a big fan of this recipe for several reasons.

1. It doesn’t have nuts. Not that nuts are bad… but the moistness and softness are spoiled by the nuts for me… if you like nuts in your banana bread, put them in there. It’ll really have zero effect on the recipe otherwise. How many? I dunno. How much do you like nuts? I think about a cup would be normal.
2. I like any bread that’s really a cake. Since it’s called a “bread” it’s perfectly acceptable to sit there and have a piece for breakfast… maybe toasted a little bit… little bit of butter…  Awesome. But.. people look at you a little odd if you it down for breakfast with a cup of coffee and a big ‘ol piece of Red Velvet cake.