Recipe: Banana Bread

One thing that's true with every holiday, is there is an abundance of food!  This year, among other things, I contributed a loaf of banana bread.  Now, this is a secret family recipe, so share only with close friends {and the rest of the blog world}.

Banana Bread

To start, get out your electric mixer or a large bowl and your hand mixer.  Combine 1 cup sugar, 1 stick softened butter, and 2 eggs.

Then you will need 2 or 3 bananas.  Now, if you've never made banana bread before, this photo is probably {slightly} repulsive.  See, the thing with banana bread, the more brown your bananas, the better the bread.  In fact, the best banana bread I ever made used liquid bananas.  {true story.} 

I typically buy a few bananas, without the intent to make bread, but then I kinda forget about them, and they sit on my counter for a week or two.  Or three.  And when the bananas looks like the photo below, you know that it's time to make some bread! 

I like when my bread has a distinct banana flavor, so I use three medium bananas.  But you can use two, if that's your thing.

If you don't like rotten bananas lying around, just make sure they are mashed before you add them to your mixer.

Anyways, moving past rotten bananas, add 1/2 cup sour cream to your mixing bowl.

Then you need 1 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp salt {any salt will do}, and 1/2 tsp vanilla.

And finally add in 2 cups flour. Mix all your ingredients in your mixer until combined.

While my mixer is doing all the heavy lifting, I preheated my oven to 350 and prepped my loaf pan.  First, butter your pan, both the bottom and all four sides.

Then I sugar the sides.  Usually, I would flour the sides of my pan, but I find that flour baked onto the sides of the loaf is not the most tasty.  Instead, sugaring the sides tastes better than using flour, and it adds an unexpected dash of sweetness to your loaf.  Plus, the shiny sugar just makes your finished loaf look pretty.  Between the butter and the sugar - your loaf will slide right out, no fussing.

For a large loaf pan, I used about a tablespoon of sugar.

Just shake it around {preferably over your kitchen sink} to cover the sides.

By now the mixer should be finished combining all your ingredients, and your batter should look like this:

A large loaf pan will take between 1.25 and 1.5 hours to bake.  If you use a smaller loaf pan, the bread will puff up and be quite tall.  It makes for a stunning loaf of bread, but I find it takes me closer to 1.75 hours to bake.  Make sure a toothpick to the center comes out clean.

The top will be perfectly golden brown.  I cool my right in the pan for about 20 minutes, then pop it onto a baking rack to cool completely.  If you want to make your bread fancy, you can easily add 1 bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips, or some walnuts to your batter.  When I make a loaf, I typically keep my bread plain ol' vanilla - it tastes fantastic just as is.

Be prepared to make this recipe often.  Once you taste it, you will want to make it a regular thing.  The best part about this recipe, is that all the ingredients are basic - so I pretty much always have everything on hand.   Plus, the batter comes together super quick, so it's just a matter of finding time to let it bake.  It tastes time - but I promise, you won't be disappointed!

As always, for those that like a recipe all in one place, here you go!

Banana Bread {a Project Shannon original}

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• 2-3 medium bananas, mashed
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 2 cup lfour
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 bag chocolate chips (optional)
• Chopped walnuts (optional, to taste)

Combine all ingredients and mix until combined.  Grease loaf pan with butter and sugar.  Bake at 350 until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, approximately 75-90 minutes, depending on your oven.