Banana Nut Bread

The only time consuming part in this recipe is ripening the bananas until they are almost completely black.  Furthermore, that is the secret to a sweet and moist banana nut bread.  You may find that the blacker the bananas you add, the sweeter, the moister, and chewier the bread will be.  Adding unripened bananas (while still yellow), may yield a bit of tartness in the bread.  So when you can, set aside plenty of bananas ahead of time to ripe.

Here is my from unhealthy (hehehe), from-scratch recipe (ingredients yield 2 loaves):

Ingredients:

- 2 sticks of butter, softened
- 4-5 blackened bananas
- 1 1/2 cups of sifted flour
- 1 cup of brown sugar
- 1 cup of white granulated sugar
- 2 tbsp baking soda
- 3 tbsp pure vanilla extract
- Non-stick spray (with flour preferred)

Prep and Instructions:

- Pre-heat oven to 350F degrees
- Grease two large loaf baking pans with non-stick spray  (with flour preferred, to avoid extra grease on bread)

-  In a mixer at medium speed, mix softened butter, eggs, vanilla extract, brown sugar, and white sugar until mixture is at a creamy consistency.

- Add shifted flour and baking soda. Mix well until mixture becomes a batter.

- Mash bananas by hand until pureed. I like to mash the bananas by hand rather than a food processor to retain some banana chunks.

- Add banana puree (approx. 2 1/2 cups) to batter.  Continue to mix well with mixer until batter is smooth.

- Add batter into greased loaf pans.  Cover loaf pans with perforated aluminum foil to keep top from burning. Bake until center is firm. To check if the loaf is cooked thoroughly, poke the center of the load with a wooden skewer and when skewer removed clean, loaf is ready to be removed from the oven.

- Set loaves on cooling rack to cool.

- Once completely cooled, slice and serve.