Betsy’s Banana Bread

BetsyRecipes

Coffee cake and banana bread seems to be favorites among the crewmembers and as I keep misplacing my recipe for banana bread, I’m going to put it on the blog….   now when I say I can’t find it, you can remind me.  🙂

Doug eats lots of bananas.  Tinka eats lots of bananas (yes, seriously.. the Basset loves bananas).   The trouble is, they both prefer not quite ripe bananas.  If there’s any black spots on the peel, Doug won’t touch it.   Ripe bananas (which can get VERY ripe by the time I realize nobody is touching them) get tossed into the freezer in plastic bags.   Whether you peel or leave the banana peel on, they will thaw out as mushy things that you think can’t possibly be any good, but they do just fine for banana bread.

So when the mood hits for banana bread, take a stick of butter out of the fridge and a bag of frozen bananas (3-4 bananas) and let them sit on the counter for an hour or so until they are both soft and mushy.

1⁄2 cup softened butter

1 1⁄4 cups sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2eggs

3-4 ripe bananas (about 1 cup)

1⁄4 cup milk

2 cups flour

1⁄2 teaspoon salt

1⁄2 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

 

Cream butter & sugar. Add bananas, milk, vanilla & eggs. Slowly add the flour, soda and salt and mix just until blended then stir in the nuts. Grease & flour 1 bread pan (I typically do 2 of the smaller loafs .. I think they’re 8×4).   I also put parchment paper on the side/bottom of the pans so I have a sling to pull them out.   This just goes for a better looking loaf that comes out of the pan in one piece.   Bake about 60 minutes at 350 F  or until a knife comes out just clean.

Let them cool in the pan for 10-15 minutes then take them out and cool until Doug smells them.  Once he’s spotted fresh, hot banana bread, it’s pretty much history.   This freezes really well.  We keep it in the fridge…  WHEN for some reason Doug hasn’t already eaten it.

 

Gluten Free Tips

Raphael Siebenhofer :  2 weeks ago we made your banana bread, only we had to make it gluten-free because a friend of ours has a serious allergy. In case you ever need to do that: replace the flour with a mix of finely ground up walnuts & almonds and leave out one egg and cut down on the milk (all the fat in the nuts makes the dough too soft otherwise). It was delicous albeit much darker 🙂