Bananas + Beach Trip = Banana Bread

My father-in-law tells a story about driving to Florida for a fishing trip when he was a kid. (Picture a big old car, bench seats, steel dash, no seat belts and no air conditioning on a South Georgia highway.) After a few hours, he and his brothers were grumbling about hunger, so his dad pulled off at a roadside market, bought a big stalk of bananas, tossed the whole bunch in the back and drove on… Now, picture banana peels flying out the windows.

Interestingly, when his grandsons complain of hunger on beach trips he feeds them shrimp.

Anyway…back to this decade and the other side of the continent… We’re still talking about bananas and beach trips though.

We went to the beach in Oregon last week and the bananas stayed home, which is too bad because I’ve always wanted to re-enact that legendary banana toss over the driver’s seat. Thankfully however, bananas make great bread when they’ve been neglected for a while.

Here’s my favorite recipe for banana bread:
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter (softened)
2 eggs
1/3 cup water
3-4 very ripe bananas
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp baking powder 
½ tsp salt
1 cup finely chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Start by mixing the wet ingredients and bananas

Then dump in the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.

Pour the batter into a large loaf pan or two small loaf pans.

Bake for 55-65 minutes, until a toothpick in the middle comes out clean.

Let the loaves cool for a few minutes before removing them from the pans and for at least 10 more minutes before slicing.

Go bananas with the butter and enjoy!
(originally posted 4/9/2011)