Banana Bread

.



You probably have a recipe for banana bread. Or two. Or three. I do. I think I have five. Or six. That doesn't mean that any of them are sub-par recipes. On the contrary. They are all good. And they all fill different needs. One has chocolate, another chocolate chips. One is très rich, made with sour cream. Another is low in fat. This one I am posting today has a little bit of spice, and is flexible when it comes to the dairy added. You can use buttermilk, yogurt or sour cream and I often use a mixture, depending on what is in the fridge and needs to be used up. Today I had some yogurt that was dated yesterday and so I used all yogurt. As my kids would say, "It's all good."

This recipe is just slightly modified from the King Arthur Flour cookbook. It calls for a teaspoon of cinnamon, but that's too much for me. It also calls for a 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg, but I use whole nutmeg and just a couple of scrapes on a micro plane is plenty -- probably 1/8 teaspoon. I also simplify the process -- instead of mixing the dry ingredients all together in a separate bowl, I just add them directly to the wet -- saving another dirty bowl.

This bread is moist and can be fairly low in fat if you use low fat buttermilk or low fat yogurt.

Banana Bread
makes 1 loaf

printer version

2 eggs
1 cup sugar
⅓ cup oil
1 cup mashed bananas (2-3 medium)
2 t. vanilla
1 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/8 t. nutmeg
2⅔ cups flour
1 cup buttermilk, yogurt, or sour cream
1 cup walnuts (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a medium-sized bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar and oil. Blend in the mashed banana and vanilla. Add the baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and flour. Stir just until mixture is almost completely combined, with some flour left unmixed. Add buttermilk or sour cream or yogurt, mixing just until combined.

Pour into a greased 5x7 pan. Bake for 1 hour, until toothpick comes out clean. Tent with aluminum foil if bread browns too quickly.

Source: modified from King Arthur Flour cookbook

.

Pin It