Banana Bread Mini Loaves

Today I’ve made Banana Bread (3 mini loaves)

I think it’s a good idea  to update or revise recipes when I can improve on them. Here’s the banana bread recipe again, with just a little tweaking.

• 2 large or 3 small over ripe bananas
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter at room temperature (or softened)
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 cup 2 % or whole milk
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 3 Tablespoons pecan pieces

 I used half the butter I normally use, yet the banana bread is still yummy.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Use a small amount of softened butter to grease bottom and sides of your pans.

In a bowl mash bananas and sugar together with a fork, add softened butter and combine. Next add in the eggs, vanilla, and milk, and stir, then combine 1 cup of the flour, baking soda, and salt to the mixture. Lastly, add the 2nd cup of flour and stir until flour is incorporated. Batter will be lumpy. Then add the walnuts.

Pour batter into buttered mini loaf pans, sprinkle 1 Tablespoon of pecans on top of each, then bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Remove from oven and let cool 5 minutes before placing on a wire rack to cool. Enjoy warm or cold. I like it warm with salted butter.

Notes: I use King Arthur or Trader Joe’s flour. If you have sensitivity to nuts, you can leave them out, it’s still very good. For a sweet addition, I sometimes add 1/4 cup chocolate chips. Yum!

Banana Bread

I just want to say that I was so busy at Christmastime that I forgot to add anything to my blog. We had house guests coming and going, and had just moved into our new home one month ago. It has been pretty hectic. Now things have calmed down a bit. Our new neighbors love to have parties, (we love our friendly neighbors) so I look forward to baking a few things very soon for the New Year’s masquerade party. I’ll try to remember to take a picture and post my recipe. Oh and I received a KitchenAid stand mixer as a gift from my daughter, so that’s been fun to experiment with.

Banana Bread Yummy, and simple to make.

• 3 ripe bananas
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature (or softened)
• 2 eggs beaten
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup buttermilk or regular milk
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 F. Use a small amount of butter to grease a loaf pan. (about 1 tsp)

In a bowl smash sugar and bananas together with a fork, add softened butter and combine well. Next add in the eggs, vanilla, and milk, and stir, then combine 1 cup of the flour, baking soda, and salt to the mixture. Once that is a smooth consistency add the 2nd cup of flour and combine well. Lastly, add the walnuts.

Pour batter into buttered loaf pan and bake for 65 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

You can divide it into two loaves and bake about 30 minutes. Check with toothpick as above.

Remove from oven and let cool 5-10 minutes before removing from pan. Let cool on wire rack. Enjoy warm or cold. I like it warm with salted butter.

Note: I used buttermilk because I was out of regular milk, and it came out great. I have made this bread without nuts and it’s still very good. Although I prefer it with nuts. As I mentioned above, I am now the proud owner of a stand mixer. It’s great for mixing, and I did use it to make the banana bread this time. Except for adding the nuts. I don’t use it for small batch recipes. Honestly I like mixing my bread by hand. It’s therapeutic I think, well for me anyway. So we’ll see how this new shiny mixer fits in with my kitchen magic. Did I mention I have a lovely new kitchen too? I love it! No more tiny kitchen. This baby’s got room!  Happy Holidays to you and yours. Enjoy each other, and share your bread.

Banana Nut Muffins

The soothing aroma fills our home, and makes for a nice start to the day. As usual, I have tried quite a few recipes making banana bread and muffins. So I created a new recipe I call my own. Here it is!

Elaine’s Banana Nut Muffins

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter, plus 1 Tablespoon for greasing muffin pan
• 3 over ripe bananas
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
• 2 Tablespoons ground flax (optional)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs at room temperature, whisked
• 1/2 cup milk (I used 2 %)
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (I used pecans this time)

Preheat your oven to 350 F, and grease your muffin tins with the Tablespoon of butter. I like real butter, you can use cooking spray or vegetable oil if you desire.

Mash the bananas and sugar together until well incorporated. Not too smooth, you should still have small visible pieces of banana in your bowl. In a separate bowl add the flour, baking soda, salt, and ground flax. Next add the butter, vanilla and milk to the mashed bananas mixture and stir, add the eggs and stir until combined. Pour the banana mixture into the flour mixture. Now everything is in one bowl and you can mix well until no loose flour can be seen. The batter should still be lumpy. Gently stir/fold in the nuts until you have nuts throughout the mixture. We still want the mixture to be slightly lumpy. Pour your muffin tins 1/2 full of the mixture, then top them off with the rest of the mixture, they should be about 3/4 full now.

Pop them into the oven and bake for 30 minutes. The house smells great, and the Banana Nut Muffins are wonderful.

    

Notes:

I start with the muffin tins 1/2 full and then top them off because you get an even amount of nuts and mix that way.
I use butter because butter is better.
You can use large or small bananas, it comes out great either way.
You can leave out the nuts if you are nut sensitive.
Have fun and experiment adding your own, or omitting ingredients.

Enjoy!