My Mother’s Kitchen: Banana Nut Bread

My Mom made this quick bread often, maybe 1 to 2 times a month. It came out of her favorite cookbook, Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book, 1968 Edition, on page 99.

We didn’t usually add the walnuts though, but at the time I was happy with that – maybe it was my taste buds or the quality of nuts back then, but raw plain nuts didn’t taste good – although I’d hedge a lot of why I like nuts now is I buy high quality, from places such as Trader Joe’s and Costco that have a high turn over of them but also I store my nuts tightly wrapped in the refrigerator or freezer. When I was a kid, well, nuts were not very affordable except around Christmas time and then they were often soft and soggy in texture…yuck. And worse were the nuts stored in a cupboard for many months and going beyond stale.

The only changes I have made is using butter instead of shortening and Egg Beaters© instead of whole eggs. The walnuts I finely chopped up using my small food chopper. The fine texture adds a nice touch to the bread where as chunky walnuts seem to throw off my taste buds. Try a fine texture, you might fine you like it! (And also Walker loves the small texture and he gets more nutrients!) but if one doesn’t like walnuts, use chocolate chips instead. The loaf was devoured by Ford and Walker – they ate most of the loaf! It is a simple recipe but well proven to be popular 😉

Banana Nut Bread

Ingredients:
1/3 cup butter or shortening
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup liquid Egg Beaters© or 2 eggs
1¾ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 3 medium)
½ cup finely chopped walnuts

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 and spray a 9″x5″x3″ loaf baking pan with cooking spray.
Cream together the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl with a hand mixer. Add the eggs and beat well.
Whisk the dry ingredients together, add to the bowl in two parts, with the bananas between, till smooth. Stir the nuts in by hand.

Spread evenly into the prepared pan and bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

Let cool for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and put on a cooling rack. Let fully cool before slicing. Or not, if you have a hungry teenager and toddler wandering by…..

~Sarah