Banana Bread

Banana bread is essentially a type of bread that contains mashed up banana. It is a fairly quick bread to cook and is sweet and cake like.

Most Banana bread recipes use baking soda as a leavening agent and not yeast, however there are some recipes which do use yeast as the leavening agent.

Banana Bread recipes usually contain egg and so are not suitable for Vegans unless an egg substitute is used. In many recipes for Banana Bread egg is the only non-vegan ingredient.

This is a simple but delicious recipe for Banana Bread...

INGREDIENTS

* 1/2 cup margarine, softened
* 1 cup white sugar
* 2 eggs
* 1 1/2 cups mashed banana
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour one 9×5 inch pan.

2. Cream margarine and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs, then bananas. Add flour and soda, stirring just until combined.

3. Pour into prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about 1 hour (or till toothpick comes out clean). Remove from pan and let cool, store in refrigerator or freeze.

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The origin of the very first banana bread recipe is actually unknown.

However, Banana Bread seems to have first become popular when baking soda and baking powder became widely available during the 1930s.

It became a standard feature of American cookbook of the time appearing in Pillsbury's Balanced Recipes cookbook in 1933.

During the home baking revival of the 1960's the simplicity of the Banana Bread recipe lead to an explosion in it's popularity.

Many cookbooks in the 1960's started to add ingredients like nuts and fruits as a variation on the standard recipe.

INGREDIENTS

* 3 cups all-purpose flour
* 2 teaspoons baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 10 bananas, mashed
* 3/4 cup butter, softened
* 1 cup brown sugar
* 3 eggs, beaten
* 3/4 cup walnut halves or pieces
* 1/4 cup pecan halves or pieces

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease three 8×4 inch loaf pans.

2. In a large bowl, stir together flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, beat together bananas, butter, brown sugar and eggs. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture, just until combined. Fold in nuts. Pour batter into prepared pans.

3. Bake in preheated oven for 30 to 45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread rest in pans for 10 minutes, ten remove loaves from pans and allow to cool on a wire rack.

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Here are some more great Banana Bread Recipes I recommend...

Banana Bread Muffins

Spiced Banana Bread

Banana Bread With Choc Chip & Walnuts

All the recipes are downloadable in PDF format.