B = Banana Bread

I have a bonus for you with this one.  I have 2 recipes for banana bread that I love equally.  One of my requirements from a banana bread recipe is it must contain more banana than sugar.

The first is the one I've used the longest.  It's from the Mrs. Field's Cookie Book.  It is a brown sugar based loaf that is comfortably dense and wonderfully moist.

Banana Nut Bread


2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cups butter (softened)
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 large eggs
3 cups ripe bananas (about 7 mashed)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup chopped walnuts
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This is a basic quick bread (wet/dry) recipe.  Mix the butter until fluffy, add sugar (it gets considered a wet ingredient for some reason), eggs, banana and vanilla.  Mix well.  Add dry ingredients and mix again.  Don't do the over mixing thing, it's not a yeast bread and doesn't have to be kneaded.  Bake at 325° for approximately 60 minutes.  Makes two 9x5 inch loaves.

I don't make banana bread with nuts.  In fact, there are very few baked goods I'll add nuts to.  But especially banana bread, I prefer to savor the texture of the bread and generally nuts get in the way of that.

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My other favorite is a family recipe.  I'm not sure where it came from originally, and to be honest, the family wasn't even mine.  Hehe!  This is a white sugar recipe which results in a slightly different textured bread.

Stark Banana Bread


1 2/3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups bananas (mashed)
2 eggs
1/3 cup water
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Another wet/dry recipe.  Mix butter until fluffy, add sugar, banana, eggs and water, mix well.  Add dry ingredients and mix until combined.  This one claims to bake at 350° for about an hour.  As with all cakes and breads you can test them with a toothpick.
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I recently combined these two recipes hoping my favorite parts from each would make something even better.  I think it needs some tweaking still, but when I perfect it, I'll share that here too.