B-A-N-A-N-A Bread

     Every time I try to write out banana, the Hollaback Girl song by Gwen Stefani gets stuck in my head! I mean why is she even cheering for bananas?!? Oh well, let's get back on track.
     So I wrote about the Low Protein bananan bread that I made and I also made some"regular" banana bread.  So here is the recipe that we used to make the bread.  My sister, Andrea, said that it was really good and the kids seemed to enjoy it too.  I like the bread, but I'm probably a little partial since I made it!
     I used the recipe from Betty Crocker's New Cookbook.  It's not so new anymore considering I got it as a wedding gift back in 1998.  That sounds so old!  1990's ahhhhhh

     Lily and I started out by mashing up the bananas (Thanks Gwen!).  We put them in the mixer and Lily loved pushing the buttons.  The first time, she jumped and almost fell off of the chair!  I suggest you not put all of the bananas in at once because it's really hard to mix.  Then you have to scoop out the mashed ones to get the others mixed up.  Not fun!

   

     This is a picture of all of the dry ingredients.  I'll admit, I usually just throw all of the ingredients into the bowl and start mixing.  I'm not saying that's why my cooking adventures don't turn out correct, but it's a theory!  With this recipe and the PKU one, I did follow them exactly and mixed my dry ingredients first, then the wet ones. 

  

     Here's a pic after the wet ingredients were mixed it.  Looks tasty huh?!?  It's just missing the bananas.

    

     I decided to put the bread mix into smaller containers.  This way I could give some to cousin Brian for fixing our snow blower (huge help) and one to my in laws for watching the dog, while we went to Wisconsin Dells!  The rest came up to the Dells with us.  We actually only brought a little bit back home.  They went over that well!  OH, I decided to add some cinnamon on top before I baked the bread.  The recipe didn't call for it, but who doesn't like cinnamon?

     This is what they looked like after they were baked.  If only the computers had smellovision!  My house smelled great and the bread tasted great!  I hope you enjoy the view and maybe you can make some bread soon.

     We buy bananas quite a bit and every once in awhile they go too ripe for consumption!  When this happens, we put them in a baggie and put them in the freezer.  Once we get quite a few, that's when I make banana bread.  I'll just warn you .....my hands always go numb (seriously) as I'm using a knife to cut the peel off.  It feels like frostbite!

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup softened butter
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas
1/2 cup buttermilk (I didn't have any, so I used 1/2 cup milk!)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1.  Move oven rack to low position so that tops of pans will be in center of oven.  Heat oven to 350.  Grease bottoms only of loaf pans.

2.  Mix sugar and butter in large bowl.  Stir in eggs until well blended.  Add bananas, buttermilk and vanilla.  Beat until smooth.  Stir in flour, baking soda, and salt just until moistened.  Pour into pans.

3.  Back loaves about 1 hour (less time if in smaller loaf pans).  Cool 5 minutes in pans on wire rack.  Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans and place top side up on wire rack.  ( didn't do this!).