Mom's Banana Bread

4 mashed bananas

¼ cup soft butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp baking soda

2 cups flour

If you like a light fluffy bread with a taste of banana, then get a box mix cause this recipe makes a hearty moist loaf. This is my Mom’s recipe, which I think she got from her Mom. The ingredients above are enough for one loaf; I always double the recipe.

Banana bread is an exercise in patience. You can’t make a good banana bread with freshly ripe bananas; you need to wait until they are over-ripe. I’m not talking darker yellow with a few freckles of brown. You want those skins all brown, moving into black, and the bananas inside browning. The darker the banana, the sweeter the bread. You have to be patient and wait for them to be ready; not for when you want it. When I was a teen, Mom had a great deal going with the produce guy down the street at Danny’s Market. She had commented how she could never find bananas ripe enough for banana bread, because he kept taking them off the display when they went past ripe. So they struck a deal – he’d hold the over-ripe bananas aside and when she wanted some, he’d give them to her free in exchange for a loaf.

Mash up the bananas, I use my Kitchen-Aid stand mixer on a low speed. Add the soft butter, the sugar, the egg. Mix the baking soda and flour together first, then slowly add to the wet ingredients. I’ve taken to weighing flour on a digital scale, rather than trying to figure if it’s too tightly packed or loosely sifted. 5 oz is a cup. I don’t add nuts – I like a plain and simple banana bread. Tho, sometimes I do scatter a handful of dark chocolate chips into the batter – not too many, it’s not chocolate-chip banana loaf. – just a handful.

Grease a loaf pan and pour in the batter. Bake at 350 degrees for an hour. Let cool about 10 minutes and invert pan to remove. Patience: let the banana bread cool completely before cutting. When cool, just slice and eat. Mom always liked a little soft butter schmeared on her slice.