Riot and Frolic

Everyone loves banana bread.  

It's a grand statement, but it's true, right?  And dude, throw some chocolate chips in that bread and most people (OK, me) can polish off a loaf themselves.  (I might put butter on slices and then broil it if I've had a particularly rough day… or it's Tuesday.)

I had some old bananas.  I mean, look at those leftwards ones.  Gross.  But delicious.

I have a great recipe for banana bread.  I got the general outline from this book called How to Boil Water from the Food Network.  It's a great book.  Not only does it show you how to do some basic and necessary skills, but it has tasty, tasty recipes.  

Any recipe that uses this much butter is good. 

I do add and subtract a few things from the book's banana bread recipe, so I feel OK (copyright-wise) to print this…

Banana Bread

Ingredients:

– 2 sticks of butter, melted

– 3 cups flour

– 1 cup sugar

– 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

– 1 teaspoon salt

– 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

– 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

– 6-7 very ripe bananas

– 2 eggs

– 2/3 cup yogurt

– 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

(optional: chocolate chips! or walnuts [although my dad and I agree that nuts in baked goods ruin said baked good])

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in a large bowl.

In a medium bowl, mash bananas and add melted and cooled butter, eggs, yogurt, and vanilla. Stir.

Combine wet ingredients with dry and mix until just combined.  Add optional ingredients if you optioned that.  

Pour into two buttered and floured loaf pans.  

Stick in the oven for about an hour at 350 degrees.

Hints:

– I just learned that by spooning your flour into your measuring device, then leveling it off is more efficient and a better measure of flour then merely scooping it out of the container. Everything is fluffy now!

– Use a potato masher to mash your bananas.  Fun!

– Don't mix the wet and dry ingredients too much.  It makes for tougher bread.  Make sure you don't have any flour pockets, then stop.

I made this bread as pre-thank-yous for the lovely nurses and midwives at St. Joseph's Hospital since this baby should be coming anytime now. I brought cookies last time and they sure were friendly!  

Enjoy!