Best. Banana. Bread. Ever.

There is nothing like a thick slice of goooood banana bread. Toasted. With a cup of tea.

Especially when transformed from the mushy, black bananas that were doing nothing better than hanging in your fruit basket, attracting those tiny little lowlife fruit flies. From ugly black caterpillar to sweet, chewy um, butterfly!

Hmm, let me rethink that one...

I always thought I had the best banana bread recipe, but when my downstairs, ahem, FORMER downstairs neighbor Amy (wah! I miss you Amy!) brought me a slice of hers, I knew I had been decieved for years.

This banana bread has the most strong, unapologetic 'nana flavor running all the way through it. And the crust... oh the crust. It's my favorite part. I of course had to add some chocolate chips to it, because every fat kid knows that everything is better with chocolate.

So here it is. Please try it and let me know what you think. I think it's a bit sweet, but Bren loves it that way. I am still working on my technique when it comes to creaming butter and sugar together-- I think I'm too impatient. I think I should beat the butter on its own for a few and THEN add the sugar gradually, because it never comes out grainless and fluffy enough -- but despite my mediocre technique, it STILL came out wonderful. Remember, butter and eggs at room temperature always. (If you forget to leave your eggs out, you can put them in a bowl of neutral-temp tap water for about 10 minutes. That usually works).

Warning: your house is liable to smell unbelievably good.

Amy's Banana Bread

2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup softened butter
6 ripe bananas mashed, approx. 3 cups (I found I needed more -- my 6 bananas only gave me 2 cups but it was still good)
4 eggs, well beaten
2 1/2 cups CAKE flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
- With electric beater, cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy
- Add bananas and eggs, beating until well-mixed
- Sift dry ingredients together 3 TIMES. Blend with banana, but DON'T OVERMIX
- Pour into 2 lightly greased loaf pans
- Bake 45 minutes to 1 hour, until firm in center and edges begin to separate from pans
- Cool on rack 10 minutes before removing from pans

If you want to add chocolate chips, I used about 1/3 cup, and I coated them with a little flour so that they wouldn't sink to the bottom of the cake while it was cooking.

ENJOY!!! Tell me how yours came out!

-x-
aarti