This is what you do with those bananas that have gotten too ripe. Banana bread was one of my dearly loved maternal grandmother's standards and when I make it, it's always a memory trip. I have the recipe in Ba's lovely spiky handwriting and her little wire racks to turn the loaves out on. The smell fills the house and I'm ten years old again, a tall skinny little girl who didn't hesitate to butter a slice of the still-warm banana bread.
Some household acts are more than just cooking or cleaning -- some are sacraments.
Ba’s Banana Bread
Really more of a cake than a bread, it's dense and moist and sweet. Excellent toasted with butter, delicious cold and spread with cream cheese, just fine all by itself.
Makes two loaves (freezes well)
2 sticks (1/2 pound) butter
2 c. sugar
4 eggs, beaten
2 c. ripe bananas, mashed well (3 large bananas = 2 c.)
2 tsp. baking soda, stirred into the mashed bananas
3 1/2 c. sifted flour (sift before measuring)
1 tsp. salt, sifted with the flour
Prepare your loaf tins by greasing well (more butter) and cutting a piece of waxed paper to cover the bottom of the pan. Lay it in the greased pan and grease the top of the paper too.
Preheat oven to 325.
Cream together the butter and sugar. When well blended, stir in the beaten eggs. Mix well, add bananas and flour alternately till you have a well blended batter. Do not over-mix. Pour into loaf tins and bake at 325 for about an hour. A knife or bamboo skewer poked into the middle of a loaf should come out clean.
Turn out of loaf pans, peel off waxed paper, and let cool on a rack.
No comments:
Post a Comment