while back while digging through the freezer, I rediscovered the frozen bananas waiting to be baked into something. Mmmmm...banana bread. This morning, I decided today was the day. Now to find a tasty recipe. I had a cup of sour cream left over from yesterday's sour cream pancakes. I started at Smitten Kitchen and Bon Appetit: nothing I was really looking for. The Pioneer Woman Cooks: of course she has a banana bread recipe, including sour cream. And baked in a bundt cake pan...very nice! I also found a similar recipe on Martha Stewart's site. But then I had the idea for cream cheese (we had two 8-oz packages of cream cheese in the fridge...and no jalapenos so I may as well use a package in something). My mom made really tasty chocolate muffins with cream cheese centers. How delicious would that be in banana bread!? And I'm back on the hunt but quickly found my target. Sounds perfect to me, and the pictures look great!
Butter and cream cheese, check. Sugar...we had almost 2 cups but that didn't leave enough for our first cup of coffee of the day. I combined 1 3/4 cups of our granulated sugar with a 1/4 cup of caster sugar I had leftover from making cupcakes. Done. Eggs, check. Self-rising flour...how about all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt. I didn't have three full cups of all-purpose flour left so I added about a half cup of whole wheat flour. But silly me used a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon to measure out the baking powder after adding 3 tablespoons to the flour. Hmmmm...scoop out a bit, guestimate the rest, hope it doesn't ruin the bread. Whew! I used four bananas, toasted the pecans before chopping, and made our regular substitution of pure vanilla for the extract.
Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter softened
- 1 8oz. cream cheese, softened
- 2 cups sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 3 cups self rising flour
- 3-4 medium sized mashed bananas
- 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
- 1/2 tea. vanilla extract
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Beat butter and cream cheese until creamy. Gradually add sugar, beat until light and fluffy.
- Add eggs 1 at a time beating until just blended. Gradually add the flour to the mixture, beating at low speed until just blended. Stir in bananas, nuts and vanilla.
- Spoon batter into two greased and floured 8x4 loaf pans. Bake for 50-60 minutes.
irst chance to use my new KitchenAid 6-quart stand mixer courtesy of Santa and first real baking in our new oven. Yes, I flung flour all over the counter when I wasn't thinking of mixing speeds. Ha! I chose this recipe because it gave me the chance to use the remaining sour cream we had in the fridge. Everything worked great except for the accumulation of creamed butter and sugar at the bottom of the bowl. I didn't find it until I was filling the bundt cake pan. Oh well, just mix it in with the remaining batter and pour it in! It smells delicious! Waiting five more minutes before cutting a couple slabs to snack on.
