Recipe of the Week!

Banana Bread

I love banana bread, but hardly ever make it. We usually eat all our bananas before they are banana bread quality, but I finally saved up four and got to make this treat. I love this recipe because the bread turns out very moist. I don't like when banana bread is dry. It does take a pretty long time to bake though, so don't have a place you need to get to in the near future when you start this recipe. In the directions below it says to bake an hour or so, but I swear its more like 2 hours.

Ingredients

• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 large eggs
• 3 ripe bananas (I used 4)
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (I did one cup whole wheat, and one regular white)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan.

Cream the sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

In a small bowl, mash the bananas with a fork. Mix in the milk and cinnamon. In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add the banana mixture to the creamed mixture and stir until combined. Add dry ingredients, mixing just until flour disappears.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Set aside to cool on a rack for 15 minutes. Remove bread from pan, invert onto rack and cool completely before slicing.