Making this bread on a rainy afternoon makes the house smell amazing, and is the perfect snack with a cup of tea or coffee, curled up on the couch! Does life get any better than that?
Ingredients
or1 cup vegetable shortening
or1 packed cup of brown sugar (either light or dark brown sugar is fine)
or4 tablespoons vanilla extract (not imitation)
or3 cups whole-wheat flour
or2 cups all-purpose flour (preferably unbleached, not-self-rising)
or1 cup old-fashioned oats
or1 tablespoon baking soda
or1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
or1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
or1 cup of cooked quinoa, room temperature or cooled (not hot, it might cook the eggs!)
or12 overripe bananas (the softer and browner, the better!)
Preparation
1.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a mixer or using a hand blender, mix the butter, shortening, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together (in a large bowl) until combined. 2.
Add the eggs and vanilla, and mix at high speed until mixture is pale and fluffy (about 5 minutes).3.
In a second bowl, combine the flours, oats, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg.4.
In a third bowl, combine the bananas and quinoa.5.
Add the bananas and quinoa to the butter/sugar mixture, mixing at low speed until combined.6.
Add the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar/banana mixture, mixing at low speed until combined. Do this carefully, the bowl will be pretty full!7.
When the ingredients are just mixed together, take a spatula and wipe around the entire bowl once or twice more to make sure all of the ingredients got blended together; otherwise, you might have a big dollop of butter/sugar mixture that ends up in the middle of one of your loaves!8.
Use three 9 x 5 x 4 bread pans, and spray with nonstick spray (dust with flour, too, if you know that the pans don't release baked goods very easily).9.
Divide the batter evenly between the three loaf pans. Bake for 50 minutes at 350, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the loaves comes out clean.10.
Cool for ten minutes, then remove the bread from the pans, and let cool on a rack until completely cooled, about one hour. OR, if you can't wait, carefully slice off a piece, slather with butter, and enjoy!11.
NOTE: This recipe makes three loaves of bread, so feel free to cut the recipe in half! But, if you are like me, and you stockpile bananas in the freezer, then you can just go ahead and make the entire recipe. It also makes great housewarming gifts!
Additionally, you can add 1 cup of chopped nuts, 1/2 cup of sunflower seeds, 1 cup of chocolate chips, or omit the spices if you would like to play with the flavors!
