Banana nut bread

Banana nut bread

  Spending all of this time at home during the pandemic has really made me itch to bake.  It took a few days to find all of the ingredients (flour and eggs are in high demand right now), but I thought it would be lovely to make some banana bread using some bananas that my housemate was going to toss out.

Banana Nut Bread (from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything)

Ingredients:

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, plus some for greasing the pan
1 1/2 cups (about 7 ounces) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
3 very ripe bananas, mashed with a fork until smooth
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
1/2 cup grated dried unsweetened coconut

Procedure:

1) Preheat the oven to 350°F.  Grease a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan.
2) Mix together the dry ingredients.  Cream the butter and beat in the eggs and bananas.  Stir this mixture into the dry ingredients; do not mix more than necessary.  Gently stir in the vanilla, nuts, and coconut.
3) Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake for 45 to 60 minutes, until nicely browned.  A toothpick inserted in to the center of the bread will come out fairly clean when it is done, but because of the bananas this bread will remain moister than most.  Do not overcook.  Cool on a rack for 15 minutes before removing from the pan.  To store, wrap in waxed paper.

My banana nut bread.  You can see the coconut and the
pecans inside every loaf. Mmmm...

  This banana nut bread was extremely addicting and amazingly delicious (especially when served warm and fresh)!  Oh my goodness, I could not stop eating it!!!  Unfortunately, I couldn't get the middle top part to cook all the way through but didn't want to overcook it, so the middle slices were a little under-cooked toward the top.  I didn't care and scarfed it all down anyways.  I'm not usually a fan of bananas (although I knew that I liked banana nut bread), but even I was surprised at how much I savored this dish.  You've been warned!