Banana Bread

Whenever bananas go brown in my house the first thing I turn to is banana bread. Also, I stopped measuring the bananas years ago. A little extra banana has never hurt anything.

Note: Brown, overripe bananas are going to give this bread a sweeter, better flavor. Also, feel free to use this recipe as a base. Adding a little cinnamon, a few chocolate chips, or some nuts can be great twists on this recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, softened (margarine will work too)
• 4 bananas, mashed (or 1 1/2 cup mashed bananas)
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2.5 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt

Pans

Use an 2 8.5-inch bread pans, or 4 5.5-inch bread pans

Directions

1. Move oven rack so the tops of the pans will be in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease the bottom of the pans.
2. Mix sugar and butter in a large bowl. Then stir in an egg until well blended. Add bananas, buttermilk, and vanilla.
3. Mix the flour, baking soda, and salt together separately. Then add to the banana-buttermilk-butter mixture. Mix until blended. The mixture might be slightly lumpy from the bananas. Pour into pans
4. Bake 8 inch loaves for one hour, 5 inch pans for 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes, then remove from pans. Cool completely.

These loaves can be refrigerated for up to 10 days and freeze well.