Banana Banana Bread

This banana bread was very moist, despite the fact that I didn't have enough bananas (I compensated for the remaining quantity with some applesauce). Five large bananas yielded less than 2 cups, mashed so I thought it would be helpful to note that this recipe would probably require 6 or 7 bananas.

I've made several banana bread recipes here and I always come back to this one, it is a wonderful standard recipe that you can build upon and customize to your liking. A few pointers... This is a DENSE bread, the last one I made I actually weighed on my kitchen scale and it came to just under 2 1/2 lbs! This probably due to the 2 1/3 cups mashed bananas; I generally use about 5 medium size bananas but have used a little as three and it still came out good. If you like a lighter cake or muffin type bread, look elsewhere. Mix the ingredients carefully; I use my mixer to cream the butter and sugar and incorporate the eggs, but for the bananas and flour mixture I use a wooden spoon and mix gently until everything has just come together. I also add about 3/4 to 1 cup of chopped walnuts. 350 degrees for 1 hour, 15 minutes works for me but it is extremely important that I watch where my oven racks are positioned, too high in the oven and the bottom will not bake correctly, too low and it burns before the middle it cooked through. I position my rack one notch lower than direct middle of my oven and it comes out perfectly. Test with a toothpick in several places for doneness so you don't mistakenly hit a banana piece and think it is underdone. I think that's it!

Great recipe! Like others, I also added some spice (vanilla, cinnimon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice). I wanted to make muffins, so I put the batter into a muffin tin sprayed lightly with Pam. At 325 degrees they were done in about 25 minutes! The batter yeilded 12 good sized muffins that were moist and delicious! Definitely a keeper.