Simple Banana Bread
Our new range for our cottage arrived the day after I made this banana bread, which is a good thing, because you can see it is unevenly baked. The oven was always unpredictable, but the failure of the stove burners made us finally replace it. (Can you believe it, Christine?)
I chose this banana bread recipe because it uses the bare minimum of ingredients. I still prefer my favorite
banana bread recipe which requires buttermilk, but it is good to have this one as an alternative-- in a pinch.
Luckily, I had everything on hand for the recipe in the Yellow House cookbook, pg.214, Christopher Kimball's master recipe for quick bread. Our bananas were overly ripe --- which is why I went looking for the recipe in the first place. Hot days ripen bananas quickly!
2 cups flour
1.5 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
8 T. (1 stick) melted butter
3/4 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas
3/4 cup toasted chopped nuts (I prefer pecans)
It uses only baking soda as the leavening ingredient. No baking powder.
And starts with a stick of melted butter, like many of the muffin recipes I like.
Whisk the dry ingredients in one bowl.
In a second bowl, large enough to hold both the wet and dry ingredients, place the melted butter, the two eggs and the sugar.
Put the timer on for 2 minutes then whisk the wet ingredients together until smooth and frothy. (or you can use an electric hand mixer.)
Meanwhile, toast your pecans and let them cool off. Then, mash your bananas. If you start with a two cup measuring cup and fill it with broken bits of banana,
then mash it with a fork, you will end up with 1.5 cups of banana. My bananas were small so I needed 4. But a regular banana is probably 1/2 cup, so 3 would do it.
Place the bananas into the wet ingredients --- switch to a spatula now --- it is time to fold, not whisk --- and mix together.
Then add the cooled pecans to the dry ingredients, then add it all to the wet and fold together, just until combined. Do not over mix or your bread will be tough. It is okay if there are spots were the flour still shows.
Turn the batter into a pre-greased loaf pan.
Bake in a preheated oven for 50 -60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out the center clean.
Cool on its side on a rack for 10 minutes before removing.
Let it finish cooling.
Cut and serve.
