Whole Wheat Banana Bread

Do you ever have bananas that end up looking like this to the left? Don't throw them away, make them into something beautiful and yummy, like this loaf of bread. You can even freeze them until you are ready to make some bread. I wish you could smell how WONDERFUL my house smells right now.

My kids love bananas, so they rarely stick around long enough to get to this state, but this bunch did. I have a GREAT recipe for Whole Wheat Banana Bread that I got from the Recipe Zaar website. A funny thing about this recipe is that I've been making this since last summer when I found it. When I looked today on the page to see where it came from, I noticed that the recipe was submitted by Kelly Vaughn. I have a friend named Kelly Vaughn. I don't know if this is the same Kelly, but it would certainly show what a small world we live in if it was! Is this you, Kelly? Anyway, here is the yummy recipe the way I make it. Of course, I've done my own thing to it! :o)

Ingredients

1/2 cup of butter melted (one stick)
1 cup of sugar
2 eggs
3 medium extra ripe bananas (about 1 to 2 cups mashed)
1 tsp. of vanilla (I forgot to put this in my original post!)
1 cup of all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. of salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup of whole wheat flour
1/3 cup of hot water
1/2 cup of chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Put the melted butter, sugar, bananas, vanilla and eggs in a blender. Blend until smooth. In a separate bowl, stir together the flours, salt and baking soda with a wire whisk. Pour the banana mixture into the flour mixture and mix until moistened. Add the hot water and stir. Stir in chopped nuts if you are using them. Spray a loaf pan well with cooking spray. Pour the batter into the pan. Bake it in the 325 degree oven for and hour and 10 minutes. If the top starts getting too brown before the middle is done, cover it with foil.

Here's another tip if you have and old gas oven like I do (I love cooking on the stove top with gas and won't do it any other way ... don't like cooking in a gas oven). I have to really watch my oven or it gets too hot. I suggest everyone, whether they have a gas or electric oven, get an oven thermometer. I noticed that the top and sides were getting extra brown but when I stuck a knife in the middle, it was still batter-y. So, I just turned the oven off with 24 minutes to go and put the loaf back in. By the time the timer went off, it was done in the middle and not over cooked on the outside. That is just a little trick for my oven ... don't know about yours, but if you often burn stuff, you might try that ... and ALWAYS set the timer for 5 minutes earlier than a recipe says it will take to be done. I've saved many a dish by doing this.