Shannon’s Beautiful Banana Bread

I met a woman on a message board about four years ago. She posted this recipe, titling the post, “The Best Banana Bread You’ll Ever Eat.”

She wasn’t lying. Trust me. This is the best banana bread you’ll ever eat.

2 cups flour (whole wheat or white, your preference)
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp Kosher or sea salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 whole stick room temp butter (no subs)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs (room temp)
1 tsp.vanilla
3 medium/large bananas – mashed
½ cup sour cream (I use plain yogurt)
½ cup chopped nuts (optional – pecans or walnuts)

Something with which to mash bananas. I use a potato masher. I’ve used a food processor before.
large mixing bowl
two smaller mixing bowls
sifter
mixer
bread pan
parchment paper
wooden spoon
wire cooling rack

Line the bread pan with parchment paper. This will keep your loaf pan clean, and it will make it really easy to remove the bread. You can grease and flour it if you’d rather.

Heat oven to 325° degrees F.

Mash bananas.

In a small bowl combine and sift dry ingredients: flour, powders, soda, cinnamon, salt. Set aside.

In the mixer bowl cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time.

In another bowl mix the mashed bananas Stir in the sour cream (or yogurt).

Using a wooden spoon, blend ⅓ of dry ingredients into the butter mix. Then add ⅓ of the banana mix into the butter mix. Keep doing this until both dry ingredients and banana mixture are gone. Add the nuts. Give a good quick stir, trying not to handle or stir the batter too much.

Scrape batter into loaf pan and smooth top with the spoon. Bake in center of oven for 70-75 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool for a few minutes then remove from pan and finish cooling on a wire cooling rack.