Let's Make Some Sweet Bread: Bread Maker Banana Bread

Here we go again! With kiddos, it's great to make sure to always have bananas on hand. I usually buy bananas in groups of seven, my little ones usually eat them up quickly. However, from time to time, you'll get to the end of the week with a handful of overly ripe bananas on the precipice of being out of date. It was a busy week, you went out for breakfast, you were out of town, whatever. Somehow, you ended up with the sickeningly sweet, mushy bananas. That's life but don't fret. This recipe is perfect for your spotted, overripe bananas that didn't get eaten during the week. (It's literally one of my husband's favorite foods! If it were up to him, we would have banana bread every weekend.)

This is my first adventure trying a sweet bread in my bread maker. For this recipe, you use the cake setting. The time for this recipe is significantly shorter than other bread recipes. Depending on your bread maker make and model, this recipes takes about 2 hours. This is because it does not need the kneading and rising cycles that the traditional bread recipes call for. With this delicious sweet bread recipe, the bread maker only mixes the ingredients and bakes within the machine. Easy peasy!

Bread Maker Banana Bread

Ingredients

• Cooking spray

• 1/2 cup milk, room temp

• 1/3 cup butter, cubed room temp

• 2 eggs, room temp

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 1 cup bananas, mashed (2-3 medium)

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1/2 cup sugar

• 2 cups all purpose flour

• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

1. Spray the bread maker pan and kneading paddle.

2. Dump all the ingredients into the bread machine in the order that they are listed.

3. Press the Program button to select the cake program.

4. Press the Start/Stop button to begin.

5. As batter is mixing, use a rubber spatula to scrape the sides to fully mix ingredients.

6. Once the bread making cycle is complete, remove the bread from the maker and let cool on a wire wrack. It will be very hot!

7. Slice and serve! Makes one 2 1/2 lb loaf.

Recipe tidbits: For butter, I used salted butter and it was delicious. For many bread recipes, unsalted is preferred but I don't keep a lot of unsalted butter laying around. If you prefer a sweeter banana bread, you can increase the sugar up to 1 cup. If you don't have walnuts, you can use pecans or omit entirely.