Jen’s Banana Bread
Ben Ashby
Jen’s Banana Bread
A timeless recipe that feels more like a cake than a bread.
This recipe came to me in the very best way…in 2002 I was sitting at my friend Lori Gibbons’s kitchen table, and she put this in front of me…warm, with a cup of tea. I was smitten. She had tweaked the recipe and shared it. I still have the Post-it stuck in the inside cover of my cookbook from that fateful day when she rattled off the recipe to me. All these years later, the first bite out of the oven is still as perfect.
It’s the best of the breads out there…and it adapts well to gluten-free flour. I bake mine in an old iron skillet or a cast Bundt pan.
2 sticks + 3 Tbsp butter*
3 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
3 super ripe medium bananas (MUST BE previously frozen and thawed)
4 tsp lemon juice
3 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup chocolate chips
1. Place rack in center of oven; heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Drop 3 Tbsp butter into skillet, set in oven to melt as oven heats (you want it very hot and bubbly by the time you place mixed ingredients in your skillet).
3. Whisk flour, baking soda, baking powder; salt in separate bowl; set aside.
4. In stand mixer or with handheld blender, beat butter sticks and thawed bananas through with lemon juice and vanilla (it will be lumpy and bumpy, that’s ok, life is sometimes…).
5. Add sugar; beat until as creamy as you can, it will still have lumps (relax, life isn’t perfect…).
6. Add eggs, 1 at a time and beat through; add chocolate chips; mix.
7. Add dry ingredients, mix lightly.
8. Plop ½ the batter in center of skillet (use a 10-12” adjust cooking time as needed).
9. Pop in oven; bake for 1 hour or until batter is pulled back from edges of pan and fork comes out clean. Let cool on wire rack; flip out of pan onto a pretty plate to serve.
NOTES: This recipe makes 2 batches so get yourself a 2nd skillet or make 1 then the next; or save batter for the next day. Do not split the recipe, it’s just not as good.
I heart “Kerrygold” Irish butter…use the best quality you can find and stock up if it’s on sale, you can use previously frozen butter for this recipe.
