Tried & Tested: Banana Bread Recipe

I have decided to share about my cooking adventure with you all. It's an adventure not because the difficulties of the recipe, but because I rarely bake. We've moved to our new house a little bit over a year ago and I just found out last night that I've lost my mixer during the move. That's how rare the occasion is.. the simplest bread recipe done once in year.

Anyway, the nephew drop of a huge bunch of bananas on Monday evening and by Tuesday evening they have ripened. I'd hate to throw away food, so I decided to froze a bunch of bananas to be used for smoothies. Then I thought I'll use the rest in banana bread. All I have to do was purchase a tub of sour cream, mix everything into one, and bake the bread mixture.

The result was a light and moist banana bread (or cake... I can't decide).

See the recipe after the jump :)

Note: I did not come up this recipe. I used recipe found online and made modification as I went because for me cooking is not an exact science (even though using precise measurement does affect the outcome... Okay, I'm contradicting myself again).

Ingredients:
2 cups of sugar (the original recipe called for 3 cups, but I'm trying to reduce my sugar intake)
1 cup of room temperature unsalted butter
3 eggs
2 cups of mashed banana
1 cup of light sour cream
3.5 cups of all purpose flour
1 cup of walnut/pecan roughly chopped
1 cup of diced cheddar cheese (optional)
1.5 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
a dash of vanilla extract

Prepare two bread loaf tin (buttered and dusted with flour) and preheat your oven to 165 degree C

Let's begin!
1. Mix sugar and unsalted butter together. I used hand mixer to cream the butter and sugar until they are smooth. You can use electric mixer if you like (remember how I couldn't find my mixer?)

2. When the butter and sugar are smooth and creamed slightly (you could tell from the color as it turns lighter), add the eggs one by one. Make sure you mix it really well each time you add an egg.

3. Add your banana mixture, sour cream and a dash of vanilla extract. I always make a point of adding wet ingredients bit by bit, instead of the whole lot. Especially when I'm relying on my non-existent bicep muscle to mix the dough.


4. On a separate bowl, mix all your dry ingredients (flour, baking soda and cinnamon) together. Add your wet mixture and combine well. Just use a spatula instead of you mixture at this point in time.

5. This recipe should be enough for 2 bread tins, so I prepared two toppings. Banana cheese walnut and Banana raisin walnut. Mix in your topping when your dough is done.

6. Pour your dough into each bread tin and bake for 50-60 minutes at 165 degree C or until a skewer inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool the bread on a wire rack for about 15 minutes before slicing it.


 

 That's my simple and easy bread banana recipe. The bread should be soft and moist enough and slightly crusty on the outside.


My dear HY loves it so much and he promised me a new electric mixer as an incentive for more baking. Well, lets just wait and see...