Banana Bread is pretty simple and straight forward to bake. Have a piece for a snack or for breakfast with coffee. Mmmm, good!

I love baking with my granddaughter, AL. There is something about it that makes me feel special. I feel accomplished. I am handing down skills I learned from my mother and grandmother. Of course, my daughter calls me Messy Jessy but really, isn’t the art of baking sort of chaotic sometimes?

I observe AL reading a recipe aloud, measuring ingredients, utilizing various kitchen implements appropriately, making and correcting minor errors, and using the oven. She is ten years old. We have been baking together for about seven years now. She has come a long way!

She no longer spills ingredients, drops eggs on the floor or lets a spoon fall in the bowl with the mixer going at high speed. I will take some small credit here although her mother, my daughter, still shudders at the sight of us in her pristine kitchen. We might leave a sticky spot or two but we have made vast improvements. We both love baking and new recipes. We are learning to use those clean up skills.

Banana bread is fun and easy to make. You don’t need a mixer. It takes simple ingredients with ripe bananas. Personally, I encourage the use of a nonstick loaf pan. Check this pan out on Amazon. With a scant spritz of nonstick spray, the cake falls out beautifully.

Baking is our time together. We make the most of it every chance we get! Hope you enjoy the recipe!

Yield: 10 slices

Banana Bread

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Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 45 minutes

Total Time 1 hour

Ingredients

• 1 stick of unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 4 medium bananas, mashed
• 2 large eggs, slightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teasoon salt
• 1 scant teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a loaf pan with nonstick spray.
2. Mix thoroughly the melted, cooled butter, mashed bananas, vanilla and slightly beaten eggs until all is combined well.
3. In another bowl combine all of the dry ingredients and whisk well.
4. Make an indention in the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients. Use a heavy spoon and mix well.
5. Pour into prepared load pan and bake 45 minutes. Use a skewer, toothpick or small knife to check doneness. If it comes out clean, it is done. If there is still wet batter, continue to bake 5-10 minutes.

Notes

Sometimes baking soda has a tendency to be lumpy so if you have a small mesh strainer handy, use it. There is nothing worse than biting into a tiny bit of soda in this good cake!

Chopped pecans (1 cup) can be added to the dough if desired or a few pecans can be used to adorn the top of the cake before baking.