Make Banana Bread and Use Up Those Overripe Fruits

You probably know that banana bread is a great way to use overripe bananas—the bananas that are so mottled that they would otherwise become baby food. But they won’t be subjugated to being poked at with a tiny-person spoon and ending up lodged between cracks on your wooden kitchen table more than successfully landed into some little mouth. No, they will become dessert, or a sweet breakfast. Good on you.

What you might not know is that, should you get a hankering for banana bread and your bananas are still uniformly yellow, you can accelerate their mush process. Bake them in a 300-degree oven for 40 minutes. The exterior will be the color of an eggplant, like the one shown in our video, but the interior will have softened to the point where it will yield easily to a spatula.

Now you can make banana bread. Watch our video for how, and follow the recipe below. Just remove the nuts if you have any allergies (and substitute them with chocolate chips if… well, if you want to).

Banana-Nut Loaf
by Angela Gaines
Makes 1 loaf

1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for greasing
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. fine sea salt
½ cup sour cream
½ cup pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped
3 large, very ripe bananas

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9” x 5” loaf pan with butter.

Beat together the butter and sugar until fluffy and light. Add eggs and vanilla and beat just until combined. Scrape the sides of the bowl, if needed.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add the dry mixture to the butter mixture in 2 batches, being careful not to overmix.

In another bowl, mash together the bananas and sour cream with a fork. Gently fold into the batter. Then fold in the nuts.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top gently. Bake for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool bread in pan for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack. Cool completely.

If you make this recipe at home, let us know what you think. Or if you have your own banana bread tips and tricks, we’d love to hear them. For more Yahoo Food videos, click here.