25 Days of Baking: Day 3

I know I already posted one goody today, but as I missed Dec. 1, I am going to make up for it by posting 2 today and then I will be on track with the days of the month!

Day 3 brings us another favorite and again maybe not a Christmas goody per se but an excellent thing to bake and would make fantastic Neighbor gifts. The banana bread recipe I use comes from the Betty Crocker's Cookbook. Now there are multiple versions of this amazing cookbook and I do know that not all versions have the same banana bread recipe. I looked on Amazon, but couldn't find my particular book, although I the newest one may have the same recipe!?! The link for the latest model is here.

Here is the book I own, it is well loved and I did have to pry apart a few pages when I opened it. This is also where I get my peach pie recipe, which is quite delicious if I do say so myself.

On to Banana Bread, below is the recipe, as you can see from the photo there were lots of adjustments made. I originally made these when my mom gave me her recipe from her Betty Crocker's cookbook, we have since decided that this one is better so ignore the chicken scratch around it.

Banana Bread Recipe

 *1 1/4 cups sugar

*1/2 cup butter or stick of margarine, softened

*2 large eggs

*1 1/2 cups mashed very ripe bananas (3 medium)

*1/2 cup buttermilk

*1 teaspoon vanilla

*2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

*1 teaspoon baking sode

*1 teaspoon salt

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottoms only of 2 loaf pans, 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2 or 1 loaf pan 9 x 5 x 3.

2.Mix sugar and butter in large bowl. Stir in eggs until well blended. Stir in bananas, buttermilk, and vanilla; beat until smooth. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt until moistened. Divide batter evenly between pans.

3.Bake 8 inch loaves about 1 hour, 9 inch loaf about 1 hour 15 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pans on wire rack.

4. Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans and place top side up on wire rack. Cool completely; about 2 hours, before slicing. 

 I have enough frozen bananas in my freezer to make about 10 loaves, no joke, so I really should make up some more and start handing them out to people.

Now I almost never have buttermilk on hand, so I also rely on Betty to supply me with an alternative. In the back of my cookbook is an Emergency Substitutions section which is AWESOME! So if you are like me and don't have buttermilk on hand you can use this. For 1 cup buttermilk take 1 tablespoon lemon juice or white vinegar plus enough milk to make 1 cup; let stand a few minutes. I think I have only made banana bread with actual buttermilk 1 or 2 times, I always use this!

My favorite part of banana bread is where is splits at the top while baking. I could just cut the top layer off and eat just that. Otherwise I slather a slice in butter and devour!

As mentioned above a loaf would make great neighbor gifts. You can wrap it up in parchment paper and tie some bakers twine on it for a simple, yet festive look. Or I have seen cute disposable tins at Micheals that you can bake them right in and then they are ready to go!