Easy Banana Nut Bread

I've dubbed this recipe "easy" because we had all the ingredients on hand to make it - that's definitely not an everyday occasion here in our household.  We had a bunch of very ripe bananas on hand, so during dinner I mentioned the idea of making banana nut bread, and before we had all the dishes washed my hubby had already found this recipe on allrecipes.com, modified it a bit, and started whipping it up.  (He's the spontaneous chef in the family...lucky me)

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups mashed over-ripe bananas (approx. 4 large bananas)
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs, beaten
1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 9"x5" loaf pans.

2. Combine (sift if you have a sifter) flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon in large bowl.

3. In another large bowl, mix butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Add bananas, eggs, and vanilla - mix again until well blended.

4. Pour wet ingredients into dry mixture, add walnuts, then stir until just blended.

5. Pour batter into your loaf pans - dividing evenly between the two. Bake for 55-60 minutes, or until firm to the touch, in preheated oven. Once removed from oven, use toothpick to ensure bread is baked through.

6. Let cool for 5 minutes in loaf pans, then turn out onto cooling rack and allow to cool completely.  If necessary, run knife along edges to help separate the loaves from the pans.

(it makes a really pretty loaf, huh?)

Storage suggestion: Once completely cooled, wrap full loaves in aluminum foil, place in gallon-size ziplock, and place in refrigerator.

Serving suggestion: The banana bread tastes great with butter right out of the oven (we couldn't help ourselves...) but it tastes even better after being refrigerated overnight.  Slice it and place it under the oven broiler to lightly brown, then serve warm with butter.

Hope you like this as much as we did - it was mighty tasty!  As always, please leave a comment and let me know what you think...