Banana Split Bread

 You can never go wrong with a nice slice of banana bread. However, sometimes you need to shake things up. As luck would have it, we found ourselves with a glut of dried cherries, crushed pineapple, and shredded coconut. It seemed perfectly reasonable to add them, along with chocolate chips into our banana bread batter. Presto! Banana Split Bread! All you have to do is slather it in whipped cream and chocolate syrup and you've destroyed all nutritional value of traditional banana bread! I'm here to help! As always, notes are in (blue). 

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup (2 medium over-ripe) mashed bananas
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1/2 cup dried cherries (if dried aren't available, you can get away with the same amount of drained and chopped jarred maraschino cherries)
• 1/4 cup crushed pineapple
• 1/4 cup sweetened shredded coconut
• 3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• For topping: 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoons white sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F (180C, Gasmark 4). Spray a 9x5" loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray.
2. Beat butter with sugars until light and fluffy (if you don't have a Kitchenaid or electric mixer, this will be a PITA). Add egg and beat well. 
3. In a large bowl, mix flour with baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. In another bowl, mix banana with milk.
4. Add the cherries, pineapple, and coconut to the banana mixture
5. Add half the banana mixture to the butter mixture, mixing until smooth; add half the flour mixture and mix until smooth. Repeat process with second half of the banana and flour mixtures. 
6. Mix the chocolate chips into the batter
7. Pour batter into loaf pan. In a small bowl (just use the bowl you used for the flour. No sense in dirtying a third bowl), mix the 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon with 1 teaspoon white sugar; sprinkle over top of batter. 
8. Bake at 350F (180C, Gasmark 4) for 60-75 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean (cooking times will vary). Remove immediately to a wire rack to cool

IYKYK
Good Times!

Banana Nut Bread

     There's nothing like remembering you had a bag of bananas sitting on the counter for a week. You go to pick them up and they just sort of snap off their little connectors, exposing the mushy banana. You're screwed. You can't just throw them out; you spent good money on them. The only logical course of action is to make banana bread. You can never go wrong having a loaf or six of banana bread in the house. You may have seen The Wife's Banana Bread Recipe. This is not the same thing at all. Using whole wheat flour seems to really change things up. Both are really good and I'd welcome either on my plate. Make them both and let me know which you like more. As always, notes and changes are in blue.

Banana Nut Bread
via Taste of Home Everyday Light Meals

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter, softened 
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 egg white (what the hell am I going to do with ONE egg yolk? I just went ahead and used the whole egg)
• 2 cups (about 4 medium) mashed ripe bananas
• 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce (we used our own apple butter)
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 tablespoon vanilla or rum extract (we used vanilla extract and I drank some rum for good measure)
• 1-1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup chopped pecans

Directions

1. In a mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar for 2 minutes or until crumbly. Add egg, then egg white (or just 2 eggs if you're a lazy bastard like me), beating well. Beat on high speed until light and fluffy (It's too bad the recipe totally neglects to mention you're using a mixer. Granted, you might be a robot with speed settings. I just used the Kitchenaid on speed 4. Anything higher than that and it sounds like somebody is trying to land a Harrier in the kitchen and I'll be cleaning batter off the ceiling)
2. Stir in the bananas, apple sauce, honey and extract. Combine the flours, baking soda and salt; stir into banana mixture until just moistened. 
3. Pour into 9x5x3 inch loaf pan coated with nonstick cooking spray. Sprinkle with nuts. 
4. Bake at 325F (170C, Gasmark 3) for 60-65 minutes (this took almost 90 minutes in our oven. Cooking times will vary) or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.
5. Cool for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack.

Good times!

Banana Bread

     You just can't beat a well made banana bread. What a noble bread. Selflessly using bananas that would otherwise be thrown away, banana bread is perfect any time of day. This particular recipe comes by way of The Wife. She says she got the recipe from one of those "1,000,000 Recipes of Which Maybe 12 Are Any Good" CD-Roms. This is, indeed, a good recipe. The bread is moist and delicious. You could probably get away with adding some nuts to this recipe, but we're not much for nutty breads. Do what you want; we're not here to judge. As always, any notes are in blue.

Banana Bread

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup (2 medium over-ripe) mashed bananas
• 1 tablespoon milk
• For topping: 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 2 teaspoons white sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F (180C, Gasmark 4). Spray a 9x5" loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray.
2. Beat butter with sugars until light and fluffy (if you don't have a Kitchenaid or electric mixer, this will be a PITA). Add egg and beat well. 
3. In a large bowl, mix flour with baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. In another bowl, mix banana with milk.
4. Add half the banana mixture to the butter mixture, mixing until smooth; add half the flour mixture and mix until smooth. Repeat process with second half of the banana and flour mixtures. 
5. Pour batter into loaf pan. In a small bowl (just use the bowl you used for the flour. No sense in dirtying a third bowl), mix the 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon with 2 teaspoons white sugar; sprinkle over top of batter. 
6. Bake at 350F (180C, Gasmark 4) for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean (cooking times will vary). Remove immediately to a wire rack to cool. 

Good times!