Dana's banana nut bread recipe

I love banana nut bread. A long time ago, my ole buddy, Dana, gave me this recipe. It's so good, I thought it's just a shame to keep it to myself, so I'm sharing it with you.

Biggest bowl:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup melted butter (i.e. half a stick)

Another bowl

• 4 really ripe bananas (You can experiment with this. I've done it with three big bananas, four small bananas, or 3.5 medium sized bananas.)

A third bowl

• 1-3/4 cups flour (I like King Arthur's all purpose)
• 1 tsp baking soda (Do NOT use baking powder. I did that by accident a few times, and it came out terrible. I couldn't figure out why until I noticed I had used powder instead of soda.)
• 1/2 tsp salt

• however many walnuts you feel like using.

I take that stick of butter and rub all on the inside of a bread pan, then put some flour in there and move it around until the pan is coated in flour for a non-stick surface. You can also use grease instead of butter.

Put the sugar and egg in your biggest bowl and the butter in a sauce pan on low to melt it. While the butter is melting, beat the egg into the sugar with electric beaters. Once the butter is melted, pour that in there with the sugar and eggs and beat that, too.

In another bowl, mash the bananas with a potato smasher or whatever you have. I guess you could use the beaters, too. Or a fork or something.

In another bowl, put the dry ingredients--flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix that up.

Now put about half the dry ingredients and half the bananas in the bowl with the sugar/egg/butter mixture. Mix it thoroughly (I use electric beaters), then put the rest of the dry ingredients and bananas in, and mix it again.

Now put the nuts in there, and fold it in with a spatula or something.

Pour the mixture into your powdered bread pan and stick that in the oven at 350ºF for one hour. You might want to experiment with oven temperature because most people's ovens aren't all that accurate. I've found that about 350ºF or so works best for me. Dana's original recipe said 300-325ºF, but that always leaves a little raw spot on the top in the middle.

When you take it out the oven, immediately take it out of the pan and put it on a cooling rack. When you store it for the night, don't put it in plastic because that makes the surface mushy. I like to keep my surface kind of crispy if I can. I just wrap it up in paper towels. That works better than plastic.

There you have it. Good luck!