Banana Bread

Gold Medal

1 ¼ cups sugar

½ cup butter or margarine, softened

2 eggs

1 ½ cups mashed very ripe bananas (3 to 4 medium)

½ cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 ½ cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup chopped nuts, if desired

Mashing bananas is easier than mashing potatoes, but much gloopier.

Heat oven to 350F. Grease bottoms only of 2 (8x4-inch) loaf pans or 1 (9x5-inch) loaf pan.

In large bowl, mix sugar and butter. Add eggs, bananas, buttermilk and vanilla; beat with electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Stir in flour, baking soda, salt and nuts just until moistened. Pour batter into pans.

Bake 8-inch loaves 1 hour, 9-inch loaf 1 ¼ hours, or until toothpick interested in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. 

I wasn't sure what size my loaf pans were and I was dealing with a time crunch so I panicked and made two loaves. In retrospect I think that one would have been fine. 

Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans to cooling rack. Cool about 1 hour before slicing.

My Rating: 4/5 "Good stuff! I like my banana bread  with more spices and flavoring, but this one is still moist and delicious and a useful basic template. I suspect that almost everyone is either a stealth banana bread fan or an overt one, so it's hard to go wrong with this as a crowdpleaser."