Banana Nut Bread

I recently had some bananas that were too ripe to eat plain so I decided to make some banana nut bread for the office. Once, again a great hit!

If you have ripening bananas lying around and don't know quite what to do with them, I highly suggest making banana nut bread.

I think everyone loves this special treat and if you don't, you have no idea what you're missing!

Banana Nut Bread

1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups bananas, mashed
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup walnuts or pecans, chopped

Heat oven to 350º. Grease bottoms only of 2 loaf pans, 8 1/2 × 4 1/2 × 2 1/2 inches, or 1 loaf pan, 9 × 5 × 3 inches. Mix sugar and margarine in large bowl. Stir in eggs. Add bananas, buttermilk and vanilla until smooth; beat until smooth. Stir in flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda just until flour is moistened. Stir in walnuts. Pour into pans.

Bake 8-inch loaves about 1 hour, 9-inch loaf about 1 hour 15 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes. Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans. Cool completely on wire rack before slicing. Store tightly wrapped in refrigerator up to 1 week.

Makes 2 loaves (12 slices each) or 1 loaf (24 slices)