Oh, this bread. It’s like a friend.
Smells from my childhood, with this bread. Smells like home, like after school snacks, like Sunday afternoons with a cup of tea. It’s a classic and suuuuper easy to pull off.
This bread freezes well, smells richly of bananas, ships well, and is so full of banana flavor, you will eat half of it before you can even stop yourself. Make two, mail one, and you’ll be the lady with the BEST banana bread!
Mom gave me this recipe and the one small trick that goes along with it. It uses three times the number of ripe bananas than the recipe originally called for. This one also has chopped walnuts. You could add chocolate chips, coconut, cashews– anything you like! I experiment with recipes so much, I wanted to make this recipe straight up, just like mom made.
Okay, so here’s the thing about me and bananas. Sometimes they get too ripe before I can eat them all. No biggie, I throw them in the freezer (peel on) and just let them hang out there until I want to make some kind of banana bread/cake/smoothie (not all at once) thing with them. They don’t come out looking like the most attractive things, but they taste AMAZING. For this bread, we use three overripe bananas, thawed from my freezer.
The rest is simple: flour, sugar, butter, eggs, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Mash those ‘nanners with a fork!
Cream the butter and sugar. Mom always used a hand mixer. I have one, but I usually use my stand mixer. I thought for this recipe, what the heck? I’ll use the hand mixer. Butter and sugar ehhhvrewheree. Hmmmm. This is how my mom made cookies all those times? My heart goes out to ya, Mom.
We persevere and add the eggs. Now things mix a little easier!
Then we add the flour in three additions, alternating twice with the banana mash.
After first flour addition and with the first batch of bananas.
The second addition of flour gets mixed, and add the second batch of bananas.
The third and last addition of flour:
Stir in walnuts.
Pour into a buttered and parchment-lined loaf pan, and bake until golden brown, about 45-50 minutes.
It really makes a great breakfast or anytime snack with a little bit of butter. It’s so moist, you really can just eat it plain too!
- 1/3 cup butter, room temperature
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 3/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 ripe bananas, thawed from the freezer if frozen
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
- Preheat the oven to 350. Butter a 9x5x3 loaf pan well and line with parchment. Butter the parchment for extra insurance.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer or with a hand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and beat well. In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Mash together the three ripe bananas. Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture, alternating in 3 additions with the mashed banana, blending well after each addition, ending with the flour. Stir in the nuts.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until the top is golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove from the pan to cool on a rack. Serve when cooled, at least 40 minutes, or wrap in plastic to store in the fridge for up to a week.