Banana Bread - YUM!

I decided to bake.

I don't bake in my house...that is Mr. Dude's area of freaking-deliciousness, but I thought I'd silently step into that role while he was at work. And I had very ripe bananas sitting on the counter.
Taaaa-daahhh! Beautiful and OMGeee, the best tasting banana bread in the world!  

I have to confess...I don't like Mr. Dude's banana bread, so I did have some motivation to get baking. I can't really complain without giving it a shot. 

Here are my secrets:
1) Cream the crud outta that sugar and butter (and don't microwave your butter to soften it)
2) Use Really REALLY ripe bananas for extra sweetness, and smash them REALLY smooth
3) [borrowed from Mr. Dude] sugar your bread loaf pans

sugared mini-loaf

Ingredients

1 cup granulated sugar

8 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature

3 ripe medium-sized bananas or 4 small bananas

1 Tbsp. milk

2 large eggs

2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 ½ cup all purpose flour, ½ cup KAMUT flour (or whole wheat flour)

1 tsp. aluminum-free baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

 For sugaring the pans:

1 1/2 TBS salted butter (1/2 Tablespoon each for mini loaves)

3 TBS Sugar mixed with 2 tsp. cinnamon

Directions

Preheat the oven to 320 degrees F. convection oven (adjust temperature as needed for regular baking)

Add salted butter to pan(s) and place in oven to melt for 5 minutes, as oven warms. Remove pans, tilt pans to coat with melted butter. Add cinnamon-sugar mix and tilt to coat, let excess settle at bottom of 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 smooth with a fork. Mix in the milk and cinnamon.  Add the banana mixture to the creamed mixture and stir until combined.  

In 2nd bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Add dry ingredients, mixing just until flour disappears.

Pour batter into prepared pan(s) and bake 65 minutes for large pan, (35 for mini pans) 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. 

 

 recipe adapted from Food-Network's non-chef affiliated banana bread recipe