Banana bread, you smell good!

Few things in this world smell better to me than these: the scent of lavendar lotion on my newborn baby,
Dear Hubby in his Old Spice, the sweet smell in the air just after a rain on a warm day and bread baking in the oven. This banana bread in particular does not disappoint in smell yumminess! It also happens to be tasty and easy to make.

 The first thing I always do is pull out bananas from the freezer. I will always use frozen bananas because once they have thawed a little, they are so easy to incorporate into the mix. I have tried over ripe non frozen before and it just seemed like more work to mash them down.  

Freezing bananas are easy, just toss over ripe ones in the freezer as is. No need to package them. The will stay for at least a month in the freezer just as they are. When you want to make some bread just grab 3 from your stash. A tip though: defrost on a plate not the counter. As they thaw out the peels turn black and I have actually stained my counter top. Whoopsie! Once the bananas have thawed, I break off the bottom end and squeeze the banana out into a bowl.

The original recipe I used came from here . I have made this so many times now that I have adapted it to our tastes. One of the things I added was cinnamon. In my opinion most any bread other than bread for lunch/dinner should have some cinnamon in it. I also use whole wheat pastry flour instead of all-purpose flour. I also have included some oatmeal once, but Dear Hubby didn't care for it that way.

Ingredients:
3 frozen bananas thawed 
1/3 cup melted butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
healthy dash of cinnamon
1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread coconut oil (or lard) into the baking pans set aside. Empty bananas into bowl and mix with the melted butter. Batter will be lumpy. Add in sugar, egg, and vanilla and mix some more. Sprinkle in the baking soda, salt and cinnamon and mix in to the batter. Add the flour last and mix just until evenly blended. Pour mixture into two 8.5x4.5 inch loaf pans and bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes. 

Enjoy!

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