5 Banana Nut Bread

It has come to my attention that I did not have my favorite go to 5 banana bread recipe posted here to the blog. 

My story is that once a bunch of bananas was on an under the kitchen cabinet hook. The hook came loose and the whole mess of them fell behind an appliance that was positioned kitty
corner. 

Days if not weeks went by before I was cleaning back there and realized what had happened. By then the bananas were blackened but not completely dried up or moldly. 

I DID NOT want to eat them but the idea of throwing them away seemed like a waste.

 At the time the most I had used in a recipe

for banana bread had been three but I asked the internet for help and out came this recipe which we have loved ever since.

Banana bread is not wonderful to me if it does not have nuts. Walnuts taste better baked into things than eaten plain but I like many if not most nuts in a myriad of ways. 

Most recently I have discovered many are very lovely when raw. Cashews for instance.

Ingredients List:

5 Over ripe bananas

4 Eggs

1 Cup Shortening*

2 ½ Cups Sugar

1 Tablespoon Vanilla

3 ½ Cups Flour

2 Teaspoons Baking soda

1 Teaspoon Salt

1 ½ Cups Walnuts chopped

Beat banana together with the eggs and add the other wet or moist ingredients mixing well.

Sift dry items together and slowly incorporate the dry mix into the wet mixture. 

Fold nuts in last.

Grease two 9x5 bread loaf pans

Bake at 300F approximately  1 hr and 15 min

Loaves should test done. 

Meaning stick a toothpick or a knife gently in the center and pull it out. If the item comes out clean the bread is done. 

You want a smooth exit for the most part. When underdone the items will come out covered in batter meaning the middle of the loaf still needs to cook.

If the outsides start to get overly brown cover them in foil.

*I have given up using shortening. I also no longer bake cakes with oil when that is called for. I learned a low fat trick long ago and still love it. 

Use apple sauce to replace oil in dessert baking.

The consistency of shortening is a bit trickier to replicate in replacement mode. For some recipes butter is an acceptable substitute but not always. 

For this recipe what I started doing was adding ½ cup apple sauce and replacing as much as half of the white flour with whole wheat flour.

Still tastes great and works out well. If you try this I would love to know how the recipe works for you and see pics! Thanks.