Banana Bread

What do you do when you realize you have 21 bananas that are past their prime? I made all kinds of different dishes with them. One being this bread recipe. It's a simple recipe that calls for ingredients you should have on hand. I say it took me about 5 minutes to mix this up and it took about 1 1/2 hours to cook. Not sure why my time was longer than the recipe but I did have to cook it quite a bit longer. My favorite bananas to use when making banana bread are ones that are almost completely black. They are sweeter tasting and really easy to mash. I hope you like this recipe as much as I did.

Banana Bread
King Arthur All Purpose Cookbook

2 large eggs
1 cup (7 ounces) sugar
1/3 cup (2 3/8 ounces) vegetable oil
1 cup mashed banana (2 to 3 very ripe, large bananas about 7 to 9 ounces)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 2/3 cups (11 3/8 ounces) unbleached all purpose flour
1 cup (8 ounces) yogurt, buttermilk, or sour cream (I used 1/2 cup buttermilk and 1/2 cup sour cream)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium sized bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar, and oil. Blend in the mashed banana and vanilla. Whisk together and then sift the baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and flour. Add all at once to the banana mixture. Mix quickly but thoroughly, then stir in the yogurt, buttermilk or sour cream, mixing until just combined.

Pour the batter into a greased and floured 9 by 5 inch loaf pan. Bake the bread for about 1 hour, until a toothpick comes out clean. If the bread begins to brown quickly tent it with aluminum foil after 40 minutes in the oven.

When the bread is done, remove it from the oven and place on a rack for 15 minutes; after 15 minutes, remove the bread from its pan and place on the rack to finish cooling completely.