Banana Nut Bread

Holidays are kicked off here at home with Halloween. I am just about now finished with my job of identifying and eliminating candy wrappers stashed in unknown locations. My girl the sweet connoisseur has found her home in this celebration of candies. This year the kiddos mixed and matched available stuff to become a fashionable bunny and Harry Potter cum Death Eater.

Bananas are one thing we keep eating and it's gotten out of hand lately since now my husband (H) has totally joined the banana bandwagon. He finds it the best kind of snack in the current state of affairs. Luckily H does not take much shine to the baby bananas that I adore. Plantains (nenthrapazham) are more his thing. This week we had a bunch too many of the regular Chiquita bananas and some of them got overripe. I cannot eat an overripe banana if my life depended on it. I like'em just ripe. Any black spots and they are off my edible food chart. H loves them in this stage but he can only do so much by himself. Enter banana nut bread! I have made it before for my cake-in-a-jar attempts but that was a while ago. Searched and found this recipe at allrecipes.com which had hundreds of reviews and several suggestions. I followed most of those and got a here-this-minute-gone-the-next kind of recipe! You can assume that I had to struggle to get even this last piece to take a picture! Kick off your holiday season with this very comforting bread. Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Happy Thanksgiving!

In The Mix
white sugar - 1 1/2 cups (add 1/2 cup more if you prefer it more sweet)
brown sugar - 2 cups
shortening - 1 cup
eggs - 3
ripe bananas - 2 mashed (over ripe gives the best results)
all purpose flour - 3 cups
buttermilk - 1 1/4 cups
baking soda - 1 1/2 tsp
baking powder - 1 1/2 tsp
vanilla extract - 1 tsp
chopped walnuts - 1/2 cup or less (optional )

How To Do
Preheat oven to 350 F.

Take the sugars and shortening in a bowl and beat for 2-3 minutes. Add eggs and beat well after each. Instead of mashing beforehand I just added the bananas at this time in small pieces and gave it a good beat to mix it all together. This won't work if the bananas are not over ripe. Then you do have to mash. Add buttermilk and vanilla and use a whisk from this point to combine. Add in flour, baking powder and soda. Stir in nuts now. I didn't because none of us like nuts in the soft texture. I liked one idea that said to sprinkle some on the top of the bread along with sugar to give it a twist. Didn't try it this time though. Pour the batter into 2 greased 9x5 inch pans. Bake for 50 to 55 minutes or until a fork inserted into the middle returns clean.

Remove from oven and cool for 15 minutes. Dump out onto a platter and try to get at least one piece before all that soft moist goodness disappears while you watch!