This one is close to my heart. My entire family devours this bread and the kiddos keep asking for it over and over again…an entire loaf is generally gone within hours. This is the very first thing my preschooler baked with me a few months ago and since then, it’s been a tradition. If I bake a banana bread, she is always in the kitchen helping me. It’s teaching her a lot of skill sets that I will talk about in another blog post.

Prep time for this banana bread is only 15 min. Recipe is for the classic banana bread except I use whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour.

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 2 mashed ripe bananas
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup whole wheat flour (can substitute 1/2 cup with all purpose flour, if desired)
• Chopped walnuts, pecans or chocolate chips (optional; as little or as much as you like)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. In a large bowl, beat together (using a kitchen mixture ) butter and sugar until it’s fluffy.
3. Add vanilla extract and the eggs and beat again. Now, add the bananas and beat again until fully incorporated.
4. In a small saucepan or in the microwave, heat the milk until it just boils. Add the baking soda to the milk (it should foam up nicely). Add this to the batter along with the baking powder, salt and flour, and beat again until everything is nicely mixed.
5. Fold in walnuts, pecans and/or chocolate chips, if desired.
6. Grease a loaf pan or line with parchment paper. Pour the batter into the loaf pan. Top with more walnuts, pecans and/or chocolate chips (if desired) and bake for approximately 40 minutes. Insert toothpick to ensure that it comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack before slicing.