At least once a week my manager brings in a loaf of freshly made banana break, straight from the oven. It’s amazingly still warm and brings smiles to everyone in the office. I am also amazed that someone would wake up early enough to do this!

Since I don’t want to take this banana bread making for granted I decided to make J some homemade fresh, straight from the oven bread. What’s even better then that is that it was impromptu banana bread. I just got up off the couch one evening and whipped this up as a special treat/surprise. This recipe is almost food proof, so if you love banana bread then this is your chance to make it.

Ingredients

(Joy of cooking and managers recipe)

• 1 cup chocolate chips walnuts or pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped (optional) I didn’t add
•  1 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup granulated white sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• ¼ cup milk, soured with a splash of vinegar
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 2-3 ripe large bananas(approximately 1 pound or 454 grams), mashed well (about 1-1/2 cups)
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place oven rack to middle position. Butter and flour the bottom and sides of a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan. Set aside.

In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nuts. Set aside.

In a medium-sized bowl combine the mashed bananas, eggs, milk, melted butter, and vanilla. With a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, lightly fold the wet ingredients (banana mixture) into the dry ingredients just until combined and the batter is thick and chunky. (The important thing is not to over mix the batter. You do not want it smooth. Over mixing the batter will yield tough, rubbery bread.) Scrape batter into prepared pan.

Bake until bread is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 55 to60 minutes. Place on a wire rack to cool and then remove the bread from the pan. Serve warm or at room temperature. This bread can be frozen.

Yum yum yum! It was so delicious! I also screwed up a bit because I didn’t have enough butter so I added vegetable oil and more flour and it still turned out! Don’t do random substitutions, I was lucky it still worked, hence this being fool proof…..for fools like me!