B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

I love banana nut bread. But it's always a problem to make because I rarely have the patience to wait until the bananas are ripe enough, so they usually get eaten up before anything gets baked.  Now, when I'm grocery shopping, I scour the bananas in the produce section for the ripest, brownest ones available.  Sometimes, if I'm lucky, they even have completely overripe bananas for 19 cents a pound.  Can't beat that. This time, I bought bananas overripe and some still green for the family. Lo and behold, today we have banana bread.

Banana Bread (with or without nuts)
6 mashed bananas, so ripe they're juicy
4 1/2 cups flour
2 cups sour cream
3/4 cup butter
3 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
3 tsp baking powder
2 1/2 cups of walnuts (opt)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Prepare 4 loaf pans or 2 loaf pans and a 12- count muffin tin with cooking spray. In a small bowl, whisk together 3 Tbsp white sugar and 2 tsp cinnamon.  Coat the pans and muffin tin with the mixture and set aside. 
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon. Set aside. In a very large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar til fluffy.  Slowly blend in the eggs. Mix in the bananas, sour cream, and vanilla until well incorporated. Using a wooden spoon, mix in the flour mixture until a batter is formed and no lumps remain.  Stir in walnuts and divide batter between pans.  Bake in 300 degree oven for 1 hr 10 minutes, removing the muffins after 40 minutes or when a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

By far the best banana bread I've ever had, and it's so moist it just melts. I've been making this recipe for years, sometimes as a loaf and sometimes as muffins.  It's always a crowd pleaser and definitely one of my personal favorites. And when it's this easy, there's no excuse not to set aside a Sunday afternoon and make this with the kids.  Christian loves to help, and these were enjoyed on a beautiful and crisp Sunday afternoon with my gorgeous niece and my kids.  Even Marco, our fostered Catahoula, had a muffin. I love how baking gets us away from the electronic devices and brings us into the kitchen together. (Maybe I shouldn't mention that Christian was trying to get the Wii to work for the better part of an hour of this, but at least I tried.)