A few years ago, I decided that my life's mission is to assist peanut butter in it's plans to finally be considered a legitimate condiment. One day you will see beautiful peanut butter jars in amazing flavors line your grocer's shelves. I have a name picked out and everything. You just wait!
But, onto the more specific point of this post...
Which is the delicious banana peanut butter bread I made for my mother yesterday.
Not only is this bread moist and scrumptious, it has a remarkably smooth texture that is just wonderful. It's also fairly light, perfect on its own, with butter, or with anything else you have a taste for.
While I love peanut butter, my mom only 'likes' it - so this bread is actually perfect. There is just a subtle hint of the nut flavor. The peanut butter does more to lend itself to the texture of the bread than the whole flavor. That said, if I had made the bread for just myself to have around the house, I would have added more peanut butter to the mix. The recipe is fairly flexible this way - just don't go too crazy.
The bread is delicious on its own, but try warming it up and topping with a chocolate sauce (this thought was shared immediately after my mother and I tasted the bread).
Recipe:
3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
1/3 soft butter
1/3 creamy peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cup flour
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, mix both butters into the smashed bananas (no need for a mixer - use a wooden spoon!)
Add and mix in the sugar, egg, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg.
Sprinkle baking soda and salt on top and mix.
Last in is the flour.
Pour into a buttered pan (I used one of those rubber round 'pans' so I opted to not use the butter here).
You can use a regular loaf pan, but I decided that I wanted a round bread. Just preference really. Make sure to adjust your cooking times based on your pan choice! Round 9" took about 30 minutes, but a loaf pan would be closer to 50-60.
