Banana Nut Bread

Banana bread is best made with super ripe bananas, which is why I always end up making it when I have old brown bananas that there is NO WAY I would want to eat them plain. My mom gave me the bananas for this recipe, which they happened to be completely black and great for bread.

Let me just start out by saying this is one of Matt’s favorite baked good, and I don’t think I’ve EVER seen him this excited. He was jumping up and down like a little kid while it was baking! J

I really stuck to the recipe pretty well on this one actually. I did put in a cup of whole-wheat flour (like I usually do) and I cut down the sugar by ¾ cup. It called for 2 cups of sugar to only 3 cups of flour! That’s a ton! Plus bananas are really sweet on their own. So I started by only putting in a cup and tasting it and decided it needed a bit more. It would have been overly sweet with the 2 cups.

I’m also not a big fan of nuts…as I’ve mention, but Matt was the one that was most excited for this and he said yes to the nuts. So I compromised and got pecans instead of walnuts and I only put in a ½ cup instead a whole cup. J I like pecans.

I mixed it all together and put it into the oven - the longest part. The best thing about banana bread is that it’s not really “bread” in that it doesn’t call for yeast. I don’t know why, but I’m super scared of using yeast and dry to avoid it all cost. We shall see what happens when I come to the “Yeasted Goods” section in Martha’s book.

So after an episode of “Dexter” (which btw if you haven’t seen it, is awesome, and everyone should watch it!) and a few pauses in between to see how the loaf was coming along, the bread was done. It was a bit poufy in the middle and quite brown on the sides. For the second loaf I turned down the oven to 325˚. It cooked more evenly. I think it was probably because I was using a glass pan as opposed to a metal pan, so it cooked faster. I noted this for the future. J

The bread was barely cool for 10 minutes before Matt wanted to cut into it. He said it was amazing. J So I gave him the second loaf to take with him to the restaurant he works at…or I said he could keep it to himself. Haha, I think he may eat it all before he makes it back home. J

I even liked it with the pecans in it, which surprised me. Woot! Another success!