Banana Bread

Seyda invited us over for dinner over the weekend and she whipped out a fantastic meal for 5. Dinner started with appetizers, soup, entree, salad and also dessert! We took a shot of Limoncello each right before dinner and had bottles of wine to accompany our meal. Upside down banana cake/bread was for dessert. It was so yummy, I was craving for it later that night…….. And so, I decided to make some banana bread since I have some ripe bananas laying around.

My brother and his gf, Qi asked me…Banana Cake or Bread? I did not know why except that it’s more commonly called Banana Bread than Banana Cake. Perhaps it’s because the texture is more dense than a cake? And maybe coz it’s usually baked in a loaf pan? Do you know why?

This banana bread recipe is adapted from the Food Network and is by M.S. Milliken & S. Feniger. Their original recipe can be found HERE. Reviews for this recipe overall were pretty good so I decided to try out the recipe with a slight personal touch; I added vanilla extract just because I love the vanilla flavor and also nuts to the recipe. Despite my fear that the cinnamon might be over-powering, it wasn’t that strong. The cake was dense, moist and yummy! =)

 

BANANA BREAD RECIPE

Ingredients:

• 1 Cup Granulated Sugar
• 4 Oz Unsalted Butter, Room Temperature
• 2 Large Eggs
• 3 Ripe Bananas
• 1 Tbsp Milk
• 1 Tsp Ground Cinnamon
• 2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
• 1 Tsp Baking Powder
• 1 Tsp Baking Soda
• 1 Tsp Salt
• 1 Tsp Vanilla Extract (*Optional)
• 1/3 Cup Chopped Walnuts/Pecans (*Optional)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 325 F. Butter a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan.

Cream the sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

In a small bowl, mash the bananas with a fork. Mix in the milk and cinnamon. In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add the banana mixture and vanilla extract to the creamed mixture and stir until combined. Add dry ingredients, mixing just until flour disappears. Stir in chopped walnuts or pecans if desired.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Set aside to cool on a rack for 15 minutes. Remove bread from pan, invert onto rack and cool completely before slicing.

June’s Comments: Feel free to leave the vanilla extract and nuts out as they were not in the original recipe. I thought the nuts gave the bread a nice texture! =) You could probably add up to 1/2 Cup of nuts but I thought 1/3 is just right.