Toss the dry ingredients together in a big bowl:

Two cup whole wheat flour

½ cup raw brown sugar

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

One teaspoon cinnamon

Stir the moist ingredients together or use your blender for more cake-like bread:

Four ripe bananas mashed (or just toss them into the blender)

One cup buttermilk (or milk w/ one teaspoon apple cider vinegar added)

One tablespoon of peanut or walnut oil or other non hydrogenated oil.

One teaspoon vanilla extract

One egg

Mix the topping ingredients in the pan you will use to bake the bread:

Two tablespoons of  butter

¼ cup raw brown sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

A few dashes of cinnamon

Toss a few enhancements into the batter before baking:

Raisins, chopped nuts, flax seeds, oatmeal, etc. to equal ½ - ¾ cup.

Set your oven at 375 degrees. Put the butter for the topping into a 9" baking dish (round or square). Put the dish in the oven. Start mixing the other ingredients, but don‘t forget about your melting butter. Leave it only long enough for the butter to melt. Once it has melted, remove the pan from the oven. Stir the vanilla into the melted butter. Sprinkle the brown sugar and cinnamon over the butter mixture. Set this aside for later.

Put all the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl. Fluff them together using a wire whisk. You can add your “enhancements” now or wait until you have mixed in the moist ingredients. Make a depression in the center of the dry ingredients.

Combine all of the moist ingredients in a medium sized bowl or use your blender. I prefer to use the blender. The banana bread is more moist this way. Slowly pour the moist ingredients into the depression in the center of the dry ingredients. Blend them in with the wire whisk as you pour. Whisk until everything is thoroughly combined.

For a more dense bread, you should have a fairly stiff but almost pourable batter. For a more cake like bread, you will want it to be about the consistency of pancake batter. Pour the batter into the 9" pan. Put the pan back in the oven for 35 to 45 minutes. When you insert a knife or toothpick into the center, it should come out clean if the banana bread is done.

Take the bread out of the oven. Set it on a trivet to cool for about 5 minutes. Don’t leave it much longer than that, or the topping will make it stick to the pan. Place a plate over the baking dish, and turn the whole thing over. The bread should fall right out onto the plate without crumbling or spilling. If there is topping left in the pan, just scrape it out with a tablespoon. Spread it onto the top of the bread.

This bread is just great eaten hot out of the oven plain. It is very rich and really doesn’t need adornment, but I’ll bet peanut butter would be good!

Copyright: SuzanneBennett: November 6, 2008