I started making banana bread when I was in high school. I’ve been cooking & baking since I was a kid, but when I got to high school, that’s when I started my experimental recipe phase. I wanted to try to cook and bake things I’ve never tried to make before. So, that’s when I made banana bread for the first time.
My mom had an old Betty Crocker cookbook that she used from time to time. So, many of my cooking started there. I looked in the book and found a recipe for the banana bread. At the time, my grandfather was in the kitchen with me while I was making it, watching me as I did it. My grandfather had worked for several years in many restaurant kitchens, so he knew a little bit about food. Lol.
I can remember to this day him saying to me that I better add some cinnamon to my batter. You need cinnamon in a good banana bread. It wasn’t in the recipe, but I added it anyway. He was right! It made it taste even better! To this day, I put at least a teaspoon of cinnamon in my banana bread.
I still use the old Betty Crocker recipe. The only change I make is to decrease the amount of flour. Less flour and more bananas make the bread extra moist. So, I here’s the recipe:
Banana Walnut Bread
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups mashed bananas
- 1 stick soften butter
- 1 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 cups flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tso baking soda
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 whole banana, for the top, sliced lengthwise
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
- 2 tbsp turbinado sugar
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 350. Mix bananas, butter, sugar, vanilla, eggs and buttermilk. Add the flour, salt, baking soda & cinnamon. Pour into a parchment lined loaf pan. Top with banana slices, walnuts & turbinado sugar. Bake for an hour. Cool on a wire rack.
