Day 5 - Banana Bread

Today I took the day off as far as cooking goes. I needed it. I have a recipe that I made earlier in the week that I wanted to share.

Moist Banana Bread

1 cup walnuts, roughly chopped
1 3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 large, very ripe bananas
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 cup butter or shortening

Preheat oven to 375.

Spread walnuts on a flat baking sheet and roast them in the oven for 5-6 min. Midway through, toss them around on the pan so that the tops and bottoms brown evenly. When they are done remove the pan from the oven and then remove the toasted nuts from the pan and set them aside to cool.

Combine the dry ingredients.
*IMPORTANT: Make sure the walnuts are thoroughly cooled before adding them to the dry, as the heat will activate the baking powder too early.

Melt the butter until it is thoroughly melted. Set it aside at room temperature to cool, but don't let it solidify again.

Peel the bananas. Use a potato masher, mash the bananas in a separate mixing bowl.
Add the vanilla to the bananas.
Beat the eggs in a separate bowl and then add the beaten egg to the banana mixture.

Thoroughly grease and flour a loaf pan.

Pour a tiny bit of melted butter into the wet mixture and sit it in. Repeat 3-4 times, adding a slightly large amount of the liquid butter each time until it is all incorporated.
*IMPORTANT: Don't add hot melted butter to the egg mixture as the heat from the butter would cook the egg

Add the liquid ingredients to the dry and mix for NO MORE THAN 10 SECONDS!! The batter will be visibly lumpy. That's OK! It's extremely important not to over mix the batter, or it will be too hard.

Pour into the pan and bake immediately for 50 min or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Once the pan is cool enough to touch, invert it & let it cool on a wire rack.



This bread came out very very well. I hope you enjoy it too!!