In honor of Mother’s Day I thought I would bake a recipe of a favorite mother in my life– in this case, my Aunt Sarah’s banana bread.  In hindsight perhaps I should have made one of my own mother’s recipes but I had two ripe bananas in my freezer just begging to be baked into bread so that was the deciding factor.  I know my mom will understand.

I like to have bananas with breakfast but I sometimes buy too many and can’t eat them all before they go bad.  Fortunately they freeze very well so are easy to tuck away until you are ready to add them to smoothies or baked goods so they don’t have to go to waste.  I hate wasting food.

My aunt’s recipe calls for shortening but I only had about a tablespoon left thanks to a certain houseguest who has a habit of leaving small amounts of things behind after cooking and baking with them, but never fear– I always seem to have plenty of butter on hand so substituted that instead.  And it came out just fine.

The flowers on the table are in honor of you Mom…

An hour or so in a 250 degree oven and you get this:

The note my aunt included with the recipe when she emailed it to me years ago said that the best way to enjoy the bread is with butter while it is still warm.  My aunt is a very smart lady.

Happy Mother’s Day to all my favorite mother’s out there!

Aunt Sarah’s Banana Bread

• ½ cup shortening or butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 very ripe bananas
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups flour

Pre-heat oven to 250 degrees.  Butter and lightly flour bread pan (I suggest using glass pans as the bread cooks more evenly in glass) and set aside.

Beat shortening and sugar with mixer and then add eggs and beat well.  Add mashed bananas and beat until combined.

To this mixture add baking powder, baking soda, salt, and flour.  Stir until well blended.

Put mixture into prepared bread pan and bake for about an hour or just until the top springs back.  (Note: I find that somewhere between an hour and ten minutes and an hour and twenty minutes is about right.  I have both under- and over-baked this bread before as there is a fine line between the two.  It’s best to keep an eye on the bread after an hour of baking and put back in oven for five-minute intervals as needed to finish baking.)

Let bread cool on rack for ten minutes.  Use knife to gently loosen sides of bread from pan and invert over cooling rack to finish cooling.  While the bread is still slightly warm put in plastic bag or wrap with foil or plastic wrap as the heat will help soften and sweeten the bread.