Breads, Breakfast, Recipes

Grandma’s Banana Nut Bread

Sarah

While I love making all sorts of fancy schmancy muffins and scones, cookies and cakes with recipes I found online, sometimes I get cynical of it all. The internet is overrun with complicated [but tasty] fad-type recipes, full of weird or rich or exotic ingredients and things our grandmas may or may not have called food. I like muffins made with greek yogurt and chia and goji berries and bittersweet organic chocolate chips and a flaxseed egg as much as the next food blogger, but you know what? Sometimes I just want simple. Familiar. Reliable. Or to eat my greek yogurt with a spoon. Whatevs. Sometimes I just want my Grandma’s Banana Nut Bread.

Grandma's Banana Nut Bread | thepajamachef.com

It’s the best banana bread I’ve ever tasted, buttery and soft and vanilla-y. Looking at the ingredient list it might look a little bland. No cinnamon, no nutmeg, no warm spice whatsoever. But if you use good quality ingredients–good butter, real vanilla, really ripe bananas–that doesn’t matter. You can use nuts if you want. I’ve made it with and without, and can’t really say which way is better. 🙂 Walnuts and pecans are my favorite two options here though. I can’t tell you how many loaves of this bread I’ve made over the years, with my mom and grandma surely, but also with my sister, my roommates, my husband. As it bakes up perfectly every time, I just think of family and love. Eating a warm slice of this bread is absolutely heavenly. I hope your family enjoys it as much as mine!

Grandma's Banana Nut Bread | thepajamachef.com

Grandma’s Banana Nut Bread
click to print

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup margarine or butter, softened
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda, dissolved in a little hot water
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 3 medium bananas, mashed
  • 1/4 cup chopped nuts, optional

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream shortening and sugar, then add ingredients in order given. Bake in 2 nut pans or 1 large [9×5] loaf pan for 1 hour.

Time: 65 minutes.

Yield: 14 servings.

Linked up with: Foodie Friday and Weekend Potluck.

Published by Sarah

Librarian. Runner. Wife. Jesus follower. Loves reading, Indiana basketball, trying new recipes, coffee, cuddling with my kitties, cozy scarves, and cardigans.

24 thoughts on “Grandma’s Banana Nut Bread”

  5. You probably know how far out there I’ve gone with banana bread in my quest to find/create a recipe that will grab the attention and steal the hearts of the state fair judges. The best I’ve done is 3rd place. There are more entries for banana bread than any other competition so I thought I needed to be different to stand out. Maybe I just need to go with a classic. In any case, I’ll be making this one for us to enjoy! Simple really is best sometimes.

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    1. i’m sure some day you’ll win it all! i’m always amazed at all the banana breads you’ve tried! i have tried a few other versions but always come back to this one. 🙂 hope you like it if you try it 🙂

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  8. Yes! I love simple too! In fact, I almost always make a very basic banana bread,with walnuts when I find myself stuck with overly ripe bananas. Simple recipes like that allow to actually taste the main ingredient in a meal (without being overshadowed by other additions), in this case bananas and nuts.

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  10. I made your banana nut bread! Delicious! all other recipes I’ve tried are usually heavy and too moist! This is perfect! Thank you!

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