Ultimate Banana Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Ingredients
1 ⅔ c
all-purpose flour
1 tsp
baking powder
½ tsp
baking soda
½ tsp
salt
¼ tsp
cinnamon
¼ tsp
nutmeg
1 lg
egg
1 c
sugar
1 c
banana
½ c
oil
2 tbsp
sour cream
1 tsp
vanilla
1 c
walnuts
Ultimate Banana Bread
This is a sweet, moist, really banana-y, pretty foolproof banana bread that you can customize with your own mix-ins. The key is to let your bananas get really ripe—almost black. (You can freeze bananas at this perfect stage, too. Just freeze them whole in their skins, and when you’re ready to make banana bread, thaw them in the microwave for 1 to 2 minutes.) This recipe is easy to double. Enjoy one loaf now, and freeze one for later. Customize it to your liking: Instead of walnuts, you can mix in pecans, macadamias, coconut, chocolate chips, dried cranberries, frozen blueberries, whatever you like—about 3/4 to 1 cup per loaf.
1 loaf
- Preheat the oven to 350°F with a rack in the lower-middle position. Line an ungreased standard loaf pan (8 1/2 by 4 1/2 inches) with a piece of parchment, covering the bottom and letting the ends of the parchment overhang the long sides of the pan to create a “sling.”
- In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Set this aside.
- In a large bowl, beat the egg and sugar with an electric mixer until thick and pale, about 2 minutes on high speed. Add the bananas, oil, sour cream, and vanilla, and beat until smooth.
- Add the flour mixture and nuts to the wet ingredients, and fold in gently just until no more streaks of flour show (the batter will look lumpy). Spread the batter in the lined pan and bake until the top springs back when lightly touched and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 hour.
- Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes, and then use the parchment sling to lift out the bread (run a thin knife along the short edges, between the bread and pan, if necessary). Peel off the parchment, and finish cooling completely on the rack before slicing.