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I’ve mentioned before about how I feel towards over-ripe bananas. I hate them. Unless you make banana “ice cream”. Or banana bread. I have fond memories of banana bread. My mom’s best friend, really a second mom for me growing up, and her husband always made the best banana bread. They gave me their recipe at my cooking themed bridal shower and I pulled it out the other day to make.

Upon reading the recipe recipe, I noticed that it was from Cook’s Illustrated/America’s Test Kitchen. I decided to Google it and see if I could find out more about it. The version I found online calls for microwaving the bananas and then reducing the banana “juice” into a syrup. Yup, kind of involved. And it called for more bananas than I had hanging out on my counter. So here’s what I did instead. Not the best banana bread I’ve ever head, but still pretty good. And with a lot less work.

banana bread
printer-friendly recipe
makes one loaf

ingredients:
1/2 cup (one stick) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 1/2 cups mashed very ripe bananas (about 3)
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons granulated sugar

directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9″x5″ loaf pan. Cream together the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment or in a large bowl with a hand mixer. Once the butter and sugar is fluffy (5 minutes), add the eggs, one at a time, incorporating each into the butter and cream mixture. Add the vanilla extract and lemon juice and stir to combine. Add the bananas to the bowl and mash with a potato masher if you haven’t mashed it already. Mix using the stand or hand mixer so that everything is well combined. Sift or whisk the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl and then add to the wet mixture and stir until just combined. Pour the batter into the loaf pan and level off the top. Sprinkle the top the batter with the granulated sugar and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow loaf to cool in the pan for 20 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack to cool completely.

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