Gift-Sized Banana Nut Bread

Ingredients

• 4 cups All-purpose Flour
• 1-⅓ cup Granulated Sugar Plus Extra For Sprinkling On Top Of The Loaves
• 4 teaspoons Baking Powder
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
• ½ teaspoons Salt
• 8  Very Ripe Bananas, Peeled (I Never Mash Them......I Let The Mixer Do The Work For Me)
• 11 Tablespoons Softened Salted Butter Plus Extra For Greasing Your Pans
• ⅓ cups Half-and-half
• 4  Eggs
• ⅓ cups Chopped Walnuts(My Cup Was Overflowing. I Love Walnuts!!!)

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a large bowl combine 2 cups of the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, bananas, butter, half-and-half and eggs. Beat on medium speed until well combined, but a little lumpy. Add remaining flour and walnuts. (You can use whichever type of nut you prefer). Beat until well blended.

Most people use regular sized loaf pans to bake banana bread. This takes way too long for me. I like mini loaf pans. They cook in half the time and are the perfect size for gifts. This batch makes enough for 8 mini loaves. I have two different sized pans. Four are 6″x3″ and four are 5″x3″.

Using butter, grease the pans. When making these it’s important that each loaf is the same size. I use a measuring cup to make sure each pan gets the same amount of batter. Sprinkle each loaf with an extra teaspoon of sugar before baking. This will give the top a beautiful, flaky, sugary crust.

Bake these for about 30 minutes. I left the 6″ pans in for 35 minutes. They turned out beautiful, moist and extra delicious! You can freeze these or give them as gifts.