Cozy Kitchen Moment: Homemade Banana Bread.

One of my favorite memories as a kid was the wonderful smells of the kitchen as my mom baked her homemade bread. I've never had another homemade bread quite as delicious as hers. Her white, banana, and zucchini breads were always my favorites as a kid and my tastes haven't changed that much as an adult. However, now I love the opportunity to make them for my family. My oldest son, age three, loves to help me make dinner, bake tasty treats, and he even loves to help me do laundry. (The last one, I will never understand.)

While we don't make banana bread very often as bananas rarely make it long enough to get over ripe, we did have the chance to bake some earlier this month. I thought why not share the recipe with you all?! But I should forewarn you all. While I DO actually have a REAL FULLY measured recipe for you all, I didn't completely follow it. My husband loves and hates this about me. I rarely measure things and even when I do I almost always change something about the recipe. Nothing quite ever tastes the same twice in my house.

I'm officially naming my banana bread:

12 Hour Banana Bread
(Because you'll be lucky if it lasts that long!) 

First things first...
Always read through all of the directions before you start making something so you can be sure you have all of the ingredients on hand.

(Oh yeah, I forgot to do this before I made it last time. Will include variation at the end.)

Preheat your oven to 350 F or 175 C
Lightly grease your bread pan whatever way you want to.

(I use canola oil with a paper towel to apply it.)I use a 9x5

Grab a big bowl and combine flour, baking soda, and salt.

In a different bowl cream together butter and brown sugar (YUM!)

I highly recommend setting your butter out first thing so its easier to cream.

Add in your beat up eggs, vanilla, and smashed bananas to your
creamed sugar and mix em' up.
(please tell me you caught the despicable me reference in my recipe card above?!)

Place the wet ingredients in with the dry and stir it all up till everything is moist. 

Bake in your oven for 60-65 minutes.

If you poke a toothpick in the middle it should come out clean.

Now for the hardest part.... Let the bread cool in the pan for 10ish minutes.

If you don't it will break apart. Trust me, I know.

After you've let it cool at least a few minutes turn it out onto your cutting board and DIG IN!

In theory it will last up to 10 days in your fridge...But not in my house. Ever.

You could add nuts or chocolate chips to this if you want.

I don't as my husband is allergic to nuts and doesn't like chocolate chips in his breads.

Plus then I'd have to limit my son on how much banana bread he ate.

My "oops I don't have everything to make this but 

I promised my son so I'll make it up" variation.

So when I made this back on 9/13 I didn't have enough bananas or brown sugar.

I had 2 medium ripe bananas and 1/3 cup brown sugar.

I packed the brown sugar just the same and then topped it off with regular white sugar.

When I added my wet stuff to the dry stuff it wasn't moist enough.

Normally I would have added some milk to the batter till it was the right consistency. However, one of our friends was over who is dairy free so I added some water instead. 

It all turned out just fine and only lasted 12 hours.