Never Fail Banana Bread

When I saw this recipe I knew I had to try it. I've never made banana bread. Scratch that. I've never made any kind of bread. I LOVE banana bread, and when I saw how simple this recipe looked I couldn't pass it up. 

Stephanie, over at The Cookbook Project was my inspiration for baking this. She and I went to school together. Growing up I remember her and I being picky eaters. She didn't like sauce on her spaghetti (only butter and Parmesan), and I didn't eat meat. When we got together I'm sure our parents would groan in agony, trying to figure out what to feed us. HA! When I saw she started her own food blog I knew I'd have to follow her journey in the kitchen. She has 291 cookbooks, and she's challenging herself to cook/bake something from each and every book until she's used all her books. I admire her goal and look forward to her posts. I have exactly 13 cookbooks, and I can tell you right now I will probably never open half of them.

Back to the goods... 

Naturally I didn't have any ripe bananas on hand, I had to buy the ripest bananas I could find at the grocery store. Usually there are over-ripe bananas on sale, not so much when I went on my search, go figure. My bananas seemed so defiant, taking their sweet time to reach optimal ripeness. Oh, and might I add, since I hardly ever never make bread I realized I didn't own a bread pan. Good thing I found one on the cheap, or this recipe probably wouldn't have happened. Anyway... While this stuff was baking my whole house held the wonderful aroma of the bread. I couldn't wait to get myself a slice. 

Never Fail Banana Bread

I doubled the recipe. However, here is the single recipe.

1 cups bananas, crushed

1 cups sugar

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon (optional, I put cinnamon in about everything:)

1 tsp vanilla (I probably doubled the amount of vanilla used, I'm a firm believer you can never really use too much vanilla:)

2 cups flour

3 Tbsp milk

1/2 cup butter

Preheat oven to 350.

Grease loaf pan.

Mix together all ingredients, adding bananas and flour last.

Pour batter into loaf pan.

Bake for 1 hour, or until the top of the bread springs back.

For my second batch, instead of a loaf I made muffins and mini-muffins. The batter made 12 muffins, and 16 of the cutest little mini banana muffins.
Bake muffins for 25-30 minutes, or until the tops of the muffins spring back.
Bake mini muffins for 10-12 minutes, or until the tops of the muffins spring back.

The only thing I'll do next time is wait juuuuuust a smidge longer on the bananas and their ripeness. I just couldn't wait any longer to make this.

Suffice it to say, the title of the bread does not lie. This bread did not fail me, not in the slightest. Too bad Scott doesn't like banana bread. Shucks. :)

Nutrition Info:
Loaf serves approximately 12; nutrition info for one slice
Calories - 211
Fat - 9g
Carbs - 19g
Fiber - >1g
Protein - 2g

Source: Adaptations from The Cookbook Project