Banana Bread

Aside from zucchini bread, banana is my favorite. Today I wanted to share my banana bread recipe with you. I'm in the process of trying to tweak this into a healthier recipe, but it's just so good like it is. (Also, I need a lot of overripe bananas to experiment with, and that's not a common occurrence.)

Without further ado, I give you banana bread a la Aly.

2 c bread flour (you can use all-purpose too)

1 t baking soda

1/4 t salt

1 t cinnamon

1/4 t nutmeg

1/4 t ginger

1/4 t cloves

1/2 t allspice

1 stick butter

1/2 - 3/4 cup packed brown sugar (depending on how sweet you like yours)

2 1/2 c mashed bananas

2 eggs, beaten

1 t vanilla

Preheat your oven to 350 degress F. Spray a 9x5 bread pan with cooking spray, or you can grease it.

Large bowl: combine all your dry ingredients. (Top section of list.)

Medium bowl: Cream together butter and brown sugar. Once that's combined, add bananas, eggs and vanilla. Remember: if you don't have enough banana, throw in some applesauce. I almost always do that anyway because it keeps the bread super moist. If you use sweetened applesauce, I'd recommend only using 1/2 c brown sugar.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry. This goes against everything I was ever taught about baking growing up, but it seems to work best to get all the dry moistened. Stir as little as possible to combine the ingredients - the bread will be tough if you over-mix.

Bake for 60-70 minutes until a toothpick inserted in several spots comes out clean. (Make sure to test more than one place, because you might stick the toothpick into a chunk of banana.) Let cool for 10 minutes, then move to a cooling rack. 

Happy eating!