Easy Peasy Banana Bread (or muffins!)

 

Ingredients

• 4 oz. butter (room temperature
• 3 over ripe (read: black) bananas (I only used two)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1.5 cups  flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 2 eggs
• pinch of salt (I just shook the shaker a few times)
• cinnamon (totally optional)
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375°F

2. Using a wooden spoon, work the sugar and butter in a bowl until smooth.

3. Add eggs, one at a time, and stir well until the batter is completely smooth.

4. In another bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, and salt.
5. Then, slowly incorporate the flour into the batter.
6. Stir until smooth, you may want to use your hands to knead the dough so that bumps do not appear.

7. In another bowl, mush bananas completely with a fork. Add vanilla extract if you want and stir. * I also added quite a bit of cinnamon at this point. We like it and together with bananas it is perfection!

8. Slowly incorporate the bananas into the dough and stir well until smooth.

9. Butter and flour your baking dish or use cooking spray if you are like me!

10. Pour the batter into the dish and put in the oven for about 55 minutes for loafs and 35ish for muffins.
11. You know the banana bread is cooked when the tip of a knife or toothpick comes out clean and dry.
12. Let cool off for about ten minutes and then remove from baking dish. You can serve this warm or room temperature. *I took mine out of the baking dish right away and let them cool, but be careful because it was hard on my fingertips! :)

I made these having never made banana bread before (other than from a box) and they turned out great...unlike my first attempt at blueberry muffins! I had read several different recipes online and adapted several of them to add my own touch. What was my touch? Cinnamon. Feel free to leave this out if you are not a lover, but I promise it is good. Also good is banana cinnamon pancakes. Yum! You could obviously use this recipe for either a loaf or muffins. I choose muffins because they are easier to grab and eat in the car on the way to work and they cook faster. Win-win, right? I think so! If you make muffins, fill the muffins almost completely. I used cupcake liners also, to keep the pan clean. The muffins puffed up so nicely and look pretty in the liners...but you can do whatever you want! Here is a tip though: you don't need to grease the pan if you use liners, but because I filled the cups so much and I wanted them to poof up, I greased the top of the pan so the overflow would not stick. It worked perfectly!

Let me know if you make these, and what you change if you change anything! I am interested to see what personal spin you can put on the recipe!

Enjoy!