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In the Kitchen: Banana Nut Bread

EH Stafford

Banana Nut Bread

Waity Rebecca Douglass Johnson’s recipe

She lived from September 18, 1894 to January 29, 1991

I have been making and enjoying this recipe all my life. It is my great grandmother’s recipe and it’s one of the first recipes I learned to bake. It’s simple and delicious. My mother traditionally makes it at Christmastime sprinkled with red sugar for gifts, it is also perfect for a chilly afternoon treat. — Ellen (EH) Stafford, LKNConnect Managing Editor

Ingredients – Makes 2 large loaves (For gifts you can make smaller loaves or muffins)

Use ripe bananas, while these bananas don’t look pretty, they taste great. Sometimes you can even get a discount at the store for very ripe bananas.

1 ½ cups white sugar

¾ cup butter (plus additional butter to grease the baking pans)

3 eggs

2 cups mashed bananas

3 ¾ cups flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup chopped walnuts

Instructions

In a mixing bowl, cream the sugar and the butter. In our family, all of this recipe was mixed by hand. You can use a mixer, it will give you a smoother, creamer result, but it’s not necessary. Mixing was my “job” when I was a child.

My mother has my grandmother’s and great grandmother’s recipe cards for this bread. This recipe is printed as my great grandmother made it. My grandmother’s card is from around World War II when there were shortages, she made it with margarine and later with a vegetable shortening (typically Crisco). Feel free to use either instead of butter, it will still be delicious.

Add eggs and mashed bananas and mix

Add flour, soda, salt and nuts. Mix well.

Do not overfill. Half to three quarters full makes a nice loaf.

Pour into greased loaf pan or pans. For glazed crusty top, sprinkle sugar on top before baking. Colored sugar makes a pretty top.

First two, no sugar. The rest sprinkled with sugar.

Bake 1 hour at 350ºF. Bread is done when you can insert a toothpick, pull it out, and it comes out clean. If the toothpick has dough on it, continue baking 5 or 10 minutes longer.