beautiful banana bread

We had a bunch of bananas that were about to get too ripe, so I was inspired to make banana bread tonight. I've made it using this recipe many, many times, but this is actually the closest I've ever come to following it strictly, so I thought I would share the recipe and results. The only change I made this time was to half the sugar since this particular bunch of bananas was particularly sweet and I prefer my banana bread to be more bread than cake-like. I've made all kinds of changes before though, like cutting the sugar down to a 1/3, using sour cream in place of butter, adding ground flax seed, using brown sugar, using varied amounts of whole wheat and white flour, and even adding chocolate chips one time. A great way to keep track of all the changes I've made is by keeping notes. I have the recipe printed out, and every time I make it, I write a little blurb on the page about what changes I made and how it turns out, along with the date. My favorite blurbs include details like "1 week in our first apartment <3" and "grad school week 1!" It turns the recipe into a journal, of sorts.

I doubled the recipe so Will and I can have a loaf, and the second loaf is for my beautiful grandmas. I plan on stopping in Dearborn and taking my Grandma T half a loaf tomorrow morning, and then going to my other grandma's house with my mom in the afternoon to deliver the second half. Banana bread delivery is love :-)

 (parchment paper loaf is for the grandmas. I wanted to be able to lift it out easily to cut in half)


I should add that simple recipes is my favorite recipe site by far. I've had great results with everything I've tried, and I love the beautiful photography of all of the food!