Sweet Shoppe Designs

Erica Zane here, bringing you one of my most used recipes!

In high school I was best friends with some awesome Australian girls who were in the states for just a few years.  One of them, Cathy, loved to cook and bake.  She was always making food and bringing it to share and I would be one of the first to eat it up!  One of the things she made quite often was banana bread and oh my word was it good!  I had to get the recipe and it has been my go to banana bread recipe ever since!  In fact, I still have the original version that she hand wrote for me almost 20 years ago (ack, was it really that long ago?).  It is super moist and oh so delicious, probably because it uses a stick of butter!

My kids LOVE it and will usually eat the whole batch in a day, especially if I am feeling nice and add chocolate chips to it…they also love to help make them!

Here’s what you’ll need…ok, you don’t “need” the cute helper but it sure makes for cuter photos!

Banana Bread

1 stick butter, room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

3 very ripe bananas

1 tsp vanilla

1  1/2   cups flour **

1 tsp baking soda

1 heaping tsp baking powder **

3/4 cup nuts or chocolate chips or both (optional)

 

** (The original recipe calls for no baking powder and 3/4 all purpose flour plus 3/4 cup self rising flour…but I never have that on hand so I tweaked it a bit!)

 

Preheat oven to 325.

Beat butter & sugar on high until fluffy.  Mix in eggs on medium.

Mix in roughly chopped bananas and vanilla.  Add flour, baking soda & baking powder.  Mix until combined.  Pour into greased muffin tin or use liners.  Bake for about 25 minutes.

 They should be golden brown on the top and a toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean.  (You can also bake in a loaf pan for about 50 minutes.)

I like to munch on them while they are still warm, mmmmmm!  But try not to eat the wrapper!

Enjoy!

ez