Banana Bread
Okay, here it is. After all these years.
This banana bread is almost always a big hit with the fam and friends. We normally make this whenever bananas get close to (or past) their peel and eat prime. Super quick and easy to make with most ingredients readily available in the house. Even better, it’s perfect for Passover (if you don’t mind eating baked goods that are made with flour that aren’t Kosher, during passover).
Please note, that >100 loaves in, following the steps below does make a difference to the outcome. Forming a creamy foundation of egg, butter, and sugar FIRST and then adding the banana mush and then folding in your dry ingredients that are sifted makes a world of difference.
Finally, the banana bread will be a moister and more banana tasting depending on how ripe your bananas are and how large they are. I find that 4 large bananas makes the sweetest most well received loaf - but this is hard to screw up either way.).
Yield: 1 Loaf
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
4 bananas, finely crushed (the riper the better)
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup raw walnuts (optional)
Directions
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Use middle rack
Take the bananas and mush them with a fork. Use a metal baking bowl (if you have it) and push the banana through the tongs of the fork. Mush and mush and mush until the banana is completely gooey. This should take a few minutes. If they are “new” and not super ripe bananas this will take longer - but with some effort and crushing you can get them as mad mushy and flavorful as ripe ones. Almost liquidity soup.
Cream together the butter and sugar in a separate bowl. Make sure the butter is room temperature. If you only have refrigerated butter, and are impatient, wrap the butter in a paper towel or parchment paper and put it in the microwave for 12 seconds. Careful, it will soften quickly and unevenly and you do not want the butter melted or too soft. You want it soft enough to cream with the butter. I like to cream the butter first to get it nice and soft with a fork. Then I add the sugar. Once the butter and sugar is nicely creamed, add the eggs. Using a fork, continue to cream it all together. You should wind up with a nice, stable, egg, butter, sugar creamed foundation.
Once the sugar and butter is nicely creamed, pour in the banana soup mush (note, if you can’t “pour” the bananas, probably not mushy enough). I use a silicon baking spatula for this part (and metal baking bowls) because it’s the best way to get all the banana transferred. Combine this very well. Add the vanilla. It should still be mushy and soup like. You now have your delicious wet base of bananas, butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla nicely combined.
Sift together the flour, soda, and salt. Don’t be lazy here. SIFT it. Takes an extra 30 seconds and legit makes a difference.
Fold the dry ingredients into wet ingredients. Combine nicely for a minute or two until you have a nice wet sticky batter.
Grease the eff out of a loaf pan. Concoctions like this will stick to your bread pan (I don’t care what innovative non-cancer producing BPA free non-stick surface made by NASA you have). My failsafe method includes a nice pad of butter and greasing like crazy. Getting butter into the corners, bottom, and the top. Then, when nice and buttered, I follow up with some cooking spray on the bottom and sides.
Pour the batter into your pan
Walnuts (optional — adults love them. Kids sometimes do not). Chop the walnuts very finely on a cutting board (note, it’s easy to chop walnuts with most any chef knife. Do not toast them first or anything). Then sprinkle the walnuts down the middle of the loaf (wife calls it “walnut mohawk”). Easiest way is to place the carving board over the middle of the loaf pan and then just push it off the side making a straight line.
Bake at 350 degrees for 60 mins on middle rack. If your bananas were larger or very ripe, let it go another 5 If you’re concerned. Do the toothpick test to ensure baked. Cool for 20 mins on wire rack. Keeps well, refrigerated and unsliced. Wife eats with cream cheese, which is innovative.