banana bread

I've made a lot of lousy loaves of banana bread.  It took me several years to get a good recipe under my belt and I think that for a while I was afraid of bananas.  My early loaves were always too dry and then there was that unfortunate chunk of time where I stopped measuring everything and routinely added too much baking soda to all baked goods and wondered why my cookies and breads left my mouth tasting like burning.  Then there was that other unfortunate time where I thought I wanted to eat healthier and used nothing but whole wheat flour, bran, and applesauce to bake with.  In case you were wondering, everything I made during that time period tasted like sticks.

It turned out okay, though.  I buy bananas now for the sole purpose of letting them rot on my kitchen counter and throw them into the freezer for later.  I realized that adding more bananas would alleviate the dryness and using actual sugar wouldn't kill me (and neither would my impending diabetes, hopefully).  I don't even burn myself anymore!

Banana Bread
Makes 2 loaves

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheal flour (old habits die hard)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda (it is important to measure this)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 6-7 overripe bananas, mashed

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease two loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten*. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

* At this point you can either keep the recipe as is, or add some nuts or chocolate chips.  I know this is starting to feel like a round of Cooking Mama.  Sorry.  This time around, I opted for one plain loaf and one chocolate chip loaf.