Recipe Share: My Mom's Banana Bread

Since it's coming upon Christmas, I'm going to share my mom's wonderful banana bread recipe. I usually make it as muffins, but she always did it as loaves of bread and gave it away to our neighbors. Either way, it is divine, and Christmas isn't the same without it. Enjoy!

MOM'S BANANA BREAD

Ingredients:
2 C. flour
1 C. sugar
3 eggs
3/4 C. oil
2 C. mashed bananas (can also use grated carrots or apples)
1 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 C. chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts are good)
(I sometimes add a few chocolate chips to the tops of my muffins for extra ooey gooey goodness)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix. Pour into well-greased loaf pans (or muffin pans or mini muffin pans - I use a melon baller scoop if making mini muffins). Top with a few chocolate chips, if desired. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes (if using loaf pans) or about 15-20 minutes for muffins. If doing mini muffins, I'd do between 12-15 minutes. (That may not be the exact time -- I just eyeball it -- when they start looking brown on top, they're done.) Serves 12.

Oh, and I'll even share with you all what my mom's secret is to making them extra moist and good... she lets her bananas get overripe and then freezes them. When you want to make the bread, place the frozen bananas in a bowl of water to thaw. When thawed, measure them out and mix with the rest of the ingredients. Doing this really makes a huge difference in how good the bread tastes.

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