Grandma’s Banana Bread.
There’s nothing better than baking a plush loaf of fresh banana bread from scratch on a cold winter day. The home fills up with a sweet cozy aroma and my childhood memories of sitting at grandma’s house surface through my thoughts. If you’ve never baked banana bread and think the idea is intimidating…look no further than this easy and delicious recipe made by none other than my beautiful grandmother, Judy.
Ingredients needed:
3 or 4 ripe (brown) bananas
1/2 cup of shortening
1 cup of sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
milk (we will be making homemade sour milk)
apple cider vinegar
2 cups of flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
chocolate chips (optional)
Directions:
Preheat your oven ahead of time to 350 degrees fahrenheit.
2. Take 1 cup of sugar and combine it with 1/2 cup of shortening in a mixing bowl.
3. Mash the two together until you have a lumpy consistency as shown in the picture. When you first begin mashing you may be thinking to yourself “I think there’s too much sugar it’s not going to mix”, just trust the process and keep mashing, it will come together I promise. I like to use the back of a fork to mix during this process.
4. In a separate bowl beat 2 eggs until smooth. Then add these eggs to your shortening mix in a larger mixing bowl.
5. Add in 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, and 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract. Then mix all these ingredients together well.
6. Ever heard of sour milk? No not the kind that goes bad in the carton. We are going to make some. This mixture allows the bread to rise and be really fluffy and soft. So, take a 1/2 cup sized measuring up and fill it up 3/4 of the way with milk then top off the measuring cup with apple cider vinegar. Let it sit for about two minutes and you should see a mixture that looks like the one in the photo. It should thicken up and almost curdle. THIS IS WHAT WE WANT!
7. Once it’s thickened up, pour it into the mixture and stir really really well!
8. You’ll notice the mixture will foam up. This is the acidic reaction happening between the apple cider vinegar and the baking soda! Keep mixing until smooth!
9. Add two cups of flour to the mixture and again, mix really well!
10. Mix until you get a dough texture as shown in the picture. Be sure to scrape down the sides to get all that flour really incorporated into the mix.
11. Grab those brown bananas. Remove the peel and plop them into your dough mixture!
12. Mash the bananas into the mixture. If you have some lumps, that is not a problem. Mash them in until you have a consistency like the one shown in the picture. If you want to add chocolate chips to your bread, now would be the time to do so.
13. Grease and flour your baking pan. I like to do this the way Grandma taught me…by taking the shortening and dipping a clean paper towel into it. Use the paper towel to wipe down all sides and the inside bottom of the pan. Then sprinkle some flour in, and move the loaf pan around until it’s coated with a thin layer of flour. Flip the pan over the sink and pat it on the bottom to dump out any excess flour!
14. Scoop that dough into your pan and spread it evenly across the top. Cover your pan with foil and pop it in your oven for 45 minutes. After 45 minutes remove the foil and bake for another 8-13 minutes or until the center is completely cooked through. Use a knife to stick into the center to check throughout those final minutes of baking and remove it when cooked.
*Maybe I’m just weird but I like my bread to be a little “doughy” so I take it out early and let it sit on the counter for a while before storing it.
15. Let your bread sit to cool and then slice it up and serve warm with a small pad of butter!
If you decide to try out this family recipe of ours, let me know in the comments below!