Banana Bread

Last but not least, the dessert we had that night was banana bread. Alison was in charged of making it. She is a wonderful baker. The banana bread came out wonderful. We topped the warm banana bread with a scoop of ice cream. Mmm… Life is good!!

Banana Bread

2 cups (285g) all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cups walnuts

3/4 cup (140g) sugar

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 very ripe, soft, darkly speckled large bananas, mashed.

1/4 cup plain yogurt

2 large eggs, beaten lightly

3/4 stick (85g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Whisk the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and walnuts together in a large bowl.

2. Preheat oven to 350F (175C).

3. Mix the mashed bananas, yogurt, eggs, butter and vanilla in a medium bowl.

4. Lightly fold the banana mixture into the flour mixture. Take caution when mixing. If I over-stir the batter, the loaf usually turned out small and tough. The reason is flour contains protein, and when protein mixes with water, gluten develops. The more you stir, the more gluten develops, which makes banana bread dry and tough. To avoid this, all you need to do is to fold together the dry and wet ingredients gently. Mix until the dry ingredients are just moistened. The batter should be thick and chunky, but without any streaks of unincorportaed flour.

5. Scrape the batter into a 9×5 inch loaf pan. Bake for 55 minutes.

6. Enjoy!