Banana Love: Good Ol' Banana Bread

Fragrant and Delicious: My Go To Banana Bread

You know I love bananas (see my previous posts for Blender Banana Layer Cake and Earthquake Banana Cream Pie). I also love sharing, and this recipe makes enough banana bread to share with your favourite people.

I’ve adapted this recipe a little over the years, but the basics come from one of the first cookbooks I bought myself as a young bride in the early 70s. The cookbook is Mmmmm: A Feastiary by Ruth Reichl.

A much loved cookbook

The book’s been like a friend to me. I still turn to it for inspiration, re-reading the recipes and the stories and enjoying the original sketches (where else can you see a corn cob playing apple notes on a peapod flute?) and sweet, offbeat photographs like the life-size quilted chicken adorning the chicken fricassee recipe. While our friendship is strong, Mmmmm’s pages are now fragile: edges yellowed, a little tattered, a little torn, some splattered with sauce and a growing number of them permanently adrift from their paperback mooring. Don’t worry, old friend, I will hold you together until destiny us do part.

You might wonder why I never replaced this beloved cookbook of mine. Well, I got to wondering that, too. After all, I’ve replaced my Joy of Cooking several times. So I googled Ruth Reichl this morning and found out that she’d gone on to great things in the world of food: writing, editing, lecturing and winning awards (you can read the details and get a few recipes at ruthreichl.com.) FYI - if you check out Mmmmm on Amazon, there are currently two new copies available starting at $558 and a handful of used copies from $35 and up.

Now, one more thing before we head for the kitchen … in Ms Reichl’s original intro to the recipe she writes “I like to bake the bread in a lot of old coffee cans so that it seems like more.” If you try baking the bread in a variety of containers, butter them up really well first and fill each about 2/3 with batter. And remember to share some slices with a friend.

MA’s Go To Banana Bread

Preheat oven to 350º F.

Grease pans.

Getting dry ingredients ready

2 ½ cups flour

2 cups sugar (use all white or 1 ½ cup white and ½ cup brown)

1 tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

½ tsp nutmeg

1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup butter

4 bananas, ugly ripe

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, salt, baking soda and spices.

For the blender: ugly bananas and all

In a blender, place butter, bananas, eggs and vanilla. Mix until well blended.

Add wet ingredients to the dry and stir with love until well blended.

Ready to bake

Pour into prepared pans. Makes 6 cups of batter, which is enough for two 6”x 3 ½” loaf pans and one 9” x 13” loaf pan.

Bake for 35 to 45 minutes. Test for doneness with cake tester or wooden skewer.

Remove from pans and cool on rack.

Keeps well in refrigerator for several days or you can wrap and freeze for future enjoyment.

Printable Recipe for MA's Go To Banana Bread