Banana Bread

Three rapidly ripening bananas.  One rapidly frantic wannabe cook, who hasn't posted a recipe in a while because she hasn't had time to find something new to cook.

Thankfully the bananas forced themselves into the spotlight and I had to make something quick.  Enter banana bread!

Generally, my go to recipe for banana bread is from America's Test Kitchen's Family Baking Book.  Unfortunately, I did not have plain yogurt on hand, so I had to frantically google for a new recipe and came across this one from Simply Recipes via Smitten Kitchen.

While I love the ATK Banana Bread, this one was also delish because it isn't as sweet.  Cutting back on the sweetness made the banana bread so yummerific, especially since the bananas were already so dark they had to be overflowing with sugars.  It'll be hard to choose a winner, but if you have plain yogurt on hand, make the ATK version; if not, go with this one.  It's a winner either way.

I might suggest, however, baking for 50 minutes instead of 1 hour - I checked my bread at 55 minutes and it seemed a bit overdone around the edges.

Mmmmmmmm.  See those brown edges?  That's where it is overdone - definitely reduce the baking time.

Banana Bread from Elise at Simply Recipes

Ingredients:

• 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
• 1/3 cup melted butter (this is about 5 1/3 tablespoons, I just used six tablespoons.)
• 1 cup sugar (I used about 80% of one cup of sugar)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

I just had to show off these two ingredients - three rapidly browning bananas, and one brand spanking new bottle of vanilla extract.  It smelled heavenly.  I'd highly recommend Trader Joe's vanilla extract (also available in alcohol free) - it's sooo much cheaper than McCormick's.

Directions:

1.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

2.  In a large bowl, smash your bananas - not necessarily into a fine paste, but into much smaller pieces.  I enjoy having the small chunks in my batter to keep the bread moist.

3.  Add melted butter into bananas.  Mix in sugar, egg, and vanilla.  Sprinkle the baking soda and salt.  Slowly combine.

4.  Add in the flour, stir slowly to combine.  Try not to overmix.  When the flour is combined, you are done!

5.  Grease a loaf pan.  Pour batter into pan and smooth the top.  Knock it against the counter a few times to make sure there are no air bubbles in the batter.

6.  Bake for 50 minutes - use a toothpick tester to check doneness starting at 40-45 minutes, depending on how hot your oven gets.

7.  Remove from oven, cool on a rack for five minutes.  

As you can see, I use Baker's Secret loaf pans.

8.  Remove from pan, continue cooling until ready to slice and serve.

All sliced up and ready to eat!