Recipe: Best Banana Bread

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Banana bread recipes are almost as bad as chocolate chip recipes - there are so many of them and they're all slightly different, but it's difficult to sift through the mediocre ones and get to the gold.

This is the gold. You're welcome.

Seriously! This bread is soft, moist, flavorful, and easy to make on top of it all! 

The walnuts can easily be left out with no other changes if you have someone with an allergy, but they really do work nicely with the flavors and textures in the bread. If you're on the fence and there's no allergy problem, leave them in!

Without further ado, here's the recipe:

Best Banana Bread

Makes One Loaf

To Dust the Pan:

* Pat of unsalted butter

* 1 Tbsp. granulated sugar

* 1/4 tsp. cinnamon

Batter:

* 1/4 c. unsalted butter

* 1 c. granulated sugar

* 1 egg

* 2 very ripe bananas, mashed

* 5 oz. sour cream

* 3/4 tsp. vanilla extract

* 3/4 tsp. cinnamon

* 1/8 tsp. ground cloves

* 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg

* 1/6 tsp. salt

* 1 tsp. baking soda

* 1.5 c all-purpose flour 

* 1/3 c. chopped walnuts

Streusel:

* 2 Tbsp. packed brown sugar

* 2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour

*1 Tbsp. butter, softened

* 1/4 tsp. salt

* 3 Tbsp. chopped walnuts 

1) Preheat oven to 325F.

2) Mix together the cinnamon and sugar for the pan in a small bowl. Use the pat of butter to grease an aluminum foil loaf pan. Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the butter (be sure to get the sides of the pan, too!) and turn to coat evenly.

3) Cream together the butter and sugar. Don't worry that it won't actually look creamy!

4) Mix in the egg, mashed bananas, sour cream, vanilla extract, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. Stir with a wooden spoon. 

5) Mix in the salt, baking soda, and flour. Don't over-mix!

 6) Mix in the walnuts. 

7) Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan.

8) In a small bowl, mix all the streusel ingredients together. Feel free to use your fingers - it will be crumbly!

9) Sprinkle the sreusel evenly over the top of the loaf pan.

10) Bake for 60-75 minutes (it's a large range, but really depends on your oven!) until the top is browned and a toothpick inserted in the middle of the loaf comes out clean. If your bread browns too quickly, tent with aluminum foil!

11) Cool in the pan on a wire rack.

Enjoy!

Seriously, it's the best. It's always one of the first desserts gone at potlucks, would work well for bake sales, and even makes a stellar sweet breakfast on special days!

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