Unconverted : Banana Bread

A dear friend of mine, I like to call her Reaux, fellow food lover, gourmet cooking groupie, and overall soul sister, often searches for recipes by typing 'the worlds best _____' into her favorite search engine.  Now understand, the girl doesn't choose the first recipe that pops up. She's got a keen eye for ingredients and directions, scouring numerous versions of the top recipes before landing on (or combining a few to create) a final recipe. She generally uses this method for classics; chocolate cake, cookies, coq au vin, etc. Since she always seems to knock it out of the park doing this, I decided to implement her search process for banana bread. Primarily because I don't like it, and therefore know very little about it. Yes, you read that correctly, I'm not fond of banana bread and understandably so have never really had a desire to make it. Dare I say this in the food world, but, banana bread is boring, kind of ugly and tastes far too much like, well, bananas! Thus, my lack of interest in whipping up a loaf. That was until I somehow wasted yet another batch of bananas. Positive I wasn't ok with throwing them away I knew I had to come up with a plan b. My solution? Banana bread of course. Simple and quick, with a list of ingredients (including the bordering on rotten bananas) I already had on hand. Regardless of my general feelings towards the stuff, I knew it was the route I was destined to take to save my browning bananas. I realized that if I was going to voluntarily make banana bread, for the first time, and possibly the last, ever, I needed to give it the best shot I could. Thus Reaux's search tactics came into play.

Anyone who knows me well enough will tell you, I can be pretty darn impatient. Therefore, instead of scouring recipe after recipe a la Reaux, I clicked 'image' search and picked the picture I thought looked most appealing. Here is where I landed. Once I read through the description I figured a guarded long used mom recipe couldn't be bad. And it wasn't. In fact, I may actually go as far to say it was good, the banana bread lovers in my life were going gaga for the stuff. Best of all, it was just out of the oven moist & soft for four days, and it made the house smell amazing. All in all I can't complain, it surely wasn't the worst experience, but unfortunately I remain an unconverted banana bread lover. But if you are, and I bet you are, bake this. Easy, quick, and simple with winning results. Who could ask for more? 

Best I've Ever Tasted Banana Bread

Ingredients

3/4 cup sugar & 1/4 cup honey 

(I modified to add the honey, if you don't like it than just use 1 cup sugar)

1/2 cup unsalted butter room temperature

3 very ripe medium sized bananas

2 eggs, well beaten

1 1/4 cup ap flour

pinch of salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer on medium speed cream the butter and sugar together for 3-5 minutes until light in color.

2. Add the bananas, eggs, and vanilla. Beat another 2 minutes to incorporate well.

3. In a small separate bowl mix together the dry ingredients.

4. Dump flour mixture into wet mixture and beat on medium speed until just incorporated. Do not overmix here. Seriously.

5. Pour into a prepared loaf pan and bake in your preheated oven for 55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. 

6. If I were a banana bread lover I would turn this mother out 5-10 minutes after it comes out, slather a slice with soft salted butter and devour.