Basic Banana Bread

Nothing better than an early weekend spring morning with warm banana bread to start your sleepy slow day. Whenever my sister in law visits, she always makes fun of my designated sorry looking banana corner on the counter. It is occupied bi-monthly with the brownest of brown bananas for my baking and cooking pleasure. More often than not they are transformed into a wonderful loaf as seen above and other times they are smashed up for pancakes, waffle batter, or in my famous super seed oats! 

I'm sharing this awesome SIMPLE recipe that you can modify with all the add ins your little heart desires, or keep it simple for a traditional taste. Earlier this past weekend I also made homemade almond butter.... to. die. for. slathered on top of a slice! I will be sharing that this upcoming week as well, so be sure to visit back! Let me know if you all give this a try, I hope you enjoy! 

Great add'ins could include caramel chips, walnuts, pecans, chocolate chips, peanut butter (almond butter, that I'll be sharing later this week!), butterscotch chips, dried fruits, maple syrup, etc. I'd love to hear how creative you get. 

Ingredients:

3 ripe bananas (I reserved a few slices for the top for decoration)

1 stick butter

1 egg (beaten)

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp baking soda

How to:

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees 

- In a large mixing bowl add bananas and mash until smooth- no lumps! Add melted butter and combine, lastly add eggs and vanilla. 

- In a separate medium sized bowl whisk together flour, salt, brown sugar, and baking soda. 

- Add flour mixture to wet ingredients in the large bowl and fold in until just mixed. Do not over mix, this will decrease the softness of the bread. 

- Pour into a loaf pan (sprayed with non-stick cooking spray) and bake for 50-60 mins or until you can remove a toothpick from center clean. 

- Cool on a wire rack and slice to enjoy!