Banana Bread

 

You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting yet another banana bread recipe, but believe me – this one is awesome, and the one you will come back to when you really want a great texture and flavor. Sometimes my “tweaking” nature of fooling around with recipes works, sometimes it doesn’t. I have a pumpkin bread recipe that I really like, and thought I might just substitute smashed up bananas for the pumpkin, and have a real nice pumpkin bread. No dice. Sank like a stone, and therefore never got fully cooked in the center. One of the pumpkin bread recipes I had been using in our home was – let’s say – “bland.” I was trying to eat a little healthier, so I found one that used less fat and sugar, but for some recipes I guess taste trumps. The youngest daughter found one basically like this online. No, it’s probably not as “healthy” as the other one I was making – but is sure tastes better.

Ingredients:
1 cup mashed banana
1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1 cup white sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
(optional: capful of banana extract)
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour (really – works much better than spray grease) two loaf pans. (I suggested 4X8 so they’d be taller, but the daughter likes more top crust even though they’re not as tall, so we use 5X9.) Combine banana and sour cream. Set aside. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and sugars until smooth. Beat in the eggs, then stir in the vanilla and mashed bananas. Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl; stir into the banana mixture. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pans. Bake 40 – 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.