Breakfast Buddies Banana Nut Bread

 

Happy Hump Day! I tell ya, I'm so glad to be on the down slope of the week. It hasn't been a bad week by any means, and I usually wouldn't wish my life away. However, I'd gotten so used to sleeping late over vacation, I think my body is upset with me. (So is the dog as he has gone back on his usual crating schedule and I guess he thought those days were over and I'd never go back to work.) Needless to say, if I can help it I will most certainly sleep until at least 10am on Saturday. (Lord willing hopefully this whole construction thing outside is over and the noise won't ruin my not-so-needed R&R.)

I suppose it's time for another recipe. So here you go. A sweet, kind of cake-like, bread. This one starts with 2 cups of Amish Friendship Bread starter. Here is a link for that.
  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/amish-friendship-bread-starter/
Or you could just Google it and a gillion search results will pop up. WARNING: This is only for the patient. It takes at least 10 days. Your home will smell like wonderful yeasty breaded goodness the entire time and your stomach will curse you for teasing the nostrils and not following through with delivery of delicious bits heaven to it.

I myself have a tree nut allergy. This recipe makes two loaves. So I usually make one loaf with nuts  and one loaf without. Bread, cakes, cookies, brownies--there's always a family member that asks me "Where's the nuts? You need to put those in there!" I also usually only top it so that I can cut the top off and eat the bottom. But it you're going to use walnuts, you'll want to just mix it in the dough/batter.


Banana Bread

2 cups of Amish Friendship Bread starter
3 super ripe bananas (I mean as brown as you can get them without them being rotten. Brown on the       outside. Still whitish yellow on the inside.)
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp vanilla
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk
*optional* 1-2 cups of pecans or walnuts whichever is preferred

Grease 2 9x5in loaf pans. Preheat over to 325 degrees. 
In a medium bowl, mash the bananas and shortening together and smooth as you get it. There will be lumps, but you don't wan't them to huge ones. Add starter, vanilla, eggs, and milk.
In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, sugar, and nutmeg. Combine this with the wet ingredients in the other bowl. Mix well. Divide/pour batter into the two pans.
If you opted to add the nuts, top it now, if you did not mix the nuts in with the batter already-which is okay too.

Bake for about 1hr 15min  (enjoy the aroma while you wait) or until it's golden on top, toothpicks come out clean, and the edges have begun to separate from the pan. Let it cool for a few minutes before separating from the pan completely. It's best to let it finish cooling on a wire rack if you have one. If not, just let it set on some parchment paper.

Here's where you wrap up the extra loaf all pretty and give it to a friend or an unsuspecting yet very deserving stranger. Yep.

Hope you enjoy it. I'm told it's the perfect companion to your cup of coffee in the morning

Don't forget, if you try any of these recipes, please comment and let us know how it turned out and what changes you'd suggest (if any). It's always a community effort to make any recipe the best it could possibly be.

-Until again-