Taste of Home – My Mama’s Banana Bread

If there is one thing I can quickly whip up to make hubby happy, it’s My Mama’s Banana Bread!  Hubby’s a bread-fiend –  he just loves bread of practically every form and fashion –  while I’m more of the “I like the meat!” type. (a lyric from ‘All De Meat’, K.B. Bahamian Hits by KB, one of our Bahamian recording artists).

When we were first married, I baked many different types of bread; all by scratch and by hand – tedious, time-consuming, and aggravating; especially as I don’t particularly care for bread.  One day, during a chat with Mom, I mentioned hating how long good bread took to make (kneading, an hour’s rising time, punch it down, and let it rise another hour – all before baking) and she provided her recipe for a quick breakfast bread that has become hubby’s favorite.

My Mama’s Banana Bread

4-6 well-ripened bananas*

¼ cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 Tsp butter

1 cup bran flakes

2 – 3 cups wheat flour

1 – 2 tsps baking powder**

1 – 2 tsps vanilla

1 – 2 tsps cinnamon powder

Heat oven to 175°C (347°F). Melt the butter and allow to cool while mixing, in a large mixing bowl with a fork, the first 3 ingredients together into a lumpy paste.  Incorporate all the bran flakes, a cup of flour, the baking powder, vanilla, and cinnamon into the wet mix.

Evaluate the consistency which should be a thick paste – add more flour until it is.  Incorporate cooled butter well, which will loosen up the mixture a bit.  Pour into lightly greased (with a sliver of butter and fingers) bread pan and bake for about an hour.

Test doneness by seeing if an inserted object comes out clean.  Cool for about 10 mins and remove from baking pan.

* amount of bananas used depends on what I have available and will affect how wet your mix will be; hence how much flour will be required.

**the other day, I realized that I didn’t have any baking powder available so I threw in about 1/2 a teaspoon of baking soda and it came out beautifully!

Yum, tastes like home: Mahlzeit!

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