Banana bread is a great way to use up those “too-ripe” bananas that suddenly appear and no one will eat. If you don’t have time to bake with them right away, toss them in the freezer until you do have time. You can toss them in with the skins on. You can peel them and stick them in a freeze bag or container. Or you can mush them up in portions suited to your normal recipe, about 1.5 cups (or 3 bananas) for the one below. The frozen bananas also work great for fruit smoothies.
I had just made banana bread last weekend and it was a big hit. However, I thought perhaps twice in a row would be pushing it so I altered this one a bit, adding some orange juice, just a splash, and a teaspoon of cinnamon. I debated about using cardamom, which Owen had at the book release party yesterday. I typically use it in Indian tea or pfefferneuse cookies and not much else. But I ended up just going with the cinnamon because I was in a hurry and didn’t want to grind anything up. Most banana bread recipes call for 1 cup of walnuts or pecans as well, but I skipped that.
Banana Bread
Ingredients
- 2 cups flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- splash of orange juice or a spoonful of frozen concentrate
- 3 very ripe bananas, mashed up with a fork
Instructions
- Mix together the dry ingredients in a small bowl.
- Cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs, vanilla, orange juice, and mashed bananas. Blend well, about 3 minutes. Add the flour mixture and stir just until moistened.
- Scrape into a greased loaf (9×5″) pan and spread out so it’s somewhat smooth. The batter will be somewhat stiff.
- Bake at 350 for an hour. Use a toothpick or a knife to poke into the middle and make sure it comes up clean. Let cool in the pan for a few minutes, then remove from the baking pan and cool on a wire rack.
If you can’t eat it all up at once, slice and freeze it. You can pull out however many slices you need and toast them to defrost.
I tried this recipe over the weekend – I was looking for something very simple and it works great! Okay so I pretended to the new boyfriend that this was a secret recipe passed on from generation to generation. Thanks :0)
Tanya
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