Banana Hazelnut Bread

 Now that I'm finally winding down from returning home, I seemed to have packed my plate full today with things to do. Why do I always do this to myself? First thing on the agenda: banana bread! I forgot to eat the last three bananas before I left to Nashville so when I returned home I had some pretty good candidates for bread. Darn.

While kind of watching football (Go Seahawks!) I started getting my hands dirty in the kitchen. I have no idea where my motivation came from..perhaps it was the three cups of coffee before 9 am. Quite possible. I also don't know where my sudden baking frenzy has come from the last few weeks but at least I have plenty of guinea pigs to feed my labors to so I don't eat it all. *Sigh* so much for trying to limit my sugar intake. 

Traditionally, banana bread is made with walnuts or almonds, but I have had this lonely jar of hazelnuts in my pantry for far too long that I decided to use instead. I never stick to a recipe anyway. Plus I have to save the rest of my almonds for the wine/cheese/almond plate that I will be treating myself to this afternoon once I get all my shit done. The only bad thing about using hazelnuts is the skins: hard to get off the whole nut and a real pain in the ass to remove from the pile after you've chopped them. Whatever. 

Here is the banana nut recipe, modified slightly from here. 

Banana (hazel)Nut Bread

1/4 c butter

1/2 c granulated sugar

1/2 c honey

2 eggs

1 1/2 c mashed, over-ripe bananas. I used three

1 1/2 c all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp sal

1/2 sliced/chopped nuts 

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 12 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2 loaf tin, or three smaller loaf tins as I usually end up doing. The size of the tins I use is roughly 5 x 3 x 5.

Cream the butter. The original recipe said to use a wooden spoon, but I must not have the right kind of wooden spoon because it was way more cumbersome than it should have been so I just switched to a regular soup spoon.

Add the sugar and honey and beat until creamy and light.

Add the eggs, one at a time, then thoroughly mix in the bananas.

Sift together the flour, soda and salt and blend thoroughly into a mixture. 

Finally, fold in the chopped nuts.

If using more than one loaf tin, evenly distribute between pans. I found this recipe made the perfect amount to split between the three tins. 

Pop them in the oven and set a timer for 1 hour. The original recipe said to lightly cover the bread with foil so the top doesn't get too brown, but I didn't do this...mostly because I missed that part. But it turned out just fine. Plus, I'm a big fan of crispy crusts. Just makes a nice contrasting texture with the soft, moist inside of the bread. 

I think I'll make my self a pumpkin spice latte (aka drive my happy ass down to the nearest coffee establishment), grab a slice-or three- and sink into bliss before I'm off to the next, um, adventure... maybe I'll just take a bath first.