Saturday Mornings and Sour Cream Banana Bread

Saturday mornings have a special place in my heart...

... And a special place in my menu plan! Saturday morning is when I set aside time to do some baking, and today it was banana bread. I've had some bananas on the counter for *several* days, and today was the "make banana bread or throw these away!" day. So I made banana bread.

A close friend gave me a recipe for Sour Cream Banana Bread, and I've been intending to try it for a while, but never had an extra half cup of sour cream on hand to make it. But today I did, so we tried it... and it is AMAZING. 

Now this is a very simple, basic banana bread. No fussy substitutions. No chocolate or nuts to distract you from the delicious banana flavor. Just a hint of cinnamon to give it some spice, and some sour cream to make it super soft.

Sour Cream Banana Bread

(Recipe adapted from Food.com found here: http://www.food.com/recipe/sour-cream-banana-bread-9351)

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 cup mashed bananas (about 3)

1/2 cup sour cream

• In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon. Set aside.
• In a medium bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Add to the dry ingredients. 
• In same medium bowl (that you just emptied), peel and mash up the bananas. 
• Add bananas and sour cream to mixture and stir until combined. 
• Bake in a greased loaf pan at 350 F for 60 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Now, quick-breads such as banana bread are *supposed* to be cooled, wrapped in plastic wrap, and set aside overnight before serving. We don't do that in our house. We did cool it enough so that no one ended up with burnt fingers, but within a few minutes of slicing, we only had half of the loaf left!

To quote the wise Andy Taylor, "Eating speaks louder than words!" The Munchkin was pretty silent while he devoured his first piece, and the Hubby and I made short work of our slices, too.

The sour cream makes this bread extra moist, while the outer crust still has a fabulous slight crunch to it. Mmmm. Maybe I'll have another piece...

This will not replace my typical go-to recipe for banana bread, but if I have rotting bananas and sour cream on hand at the same time... you can bet I'll be making this again.