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Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Strawberry Banana Bread

I was inspired to make some strawberry bread when I saw the Strawberry Sour Cream loaf on Natalie's Killer Cuisine (yummy blog!...and not just because of the name ;)). However, when I started pulling out the ingredients to make it, my eye was drawn to the bunch of browning bananas on my windowsill. I've noticed that as the temperature increases, my bananas brown faster. As a lover of mushy bananas for oatmeal, not to mention banana bread, I'm not one to complain about this! And thus I began my quest to find a strawberry banana bread recipe. Google, as always, found me what I wanted and I set out making this bread.

I was amazed by the amount of batter this made and contemplated saving back some for muffins. However, I followed the recipe to a T (with the exception of including some whole wheat flour), and poured it all into my loaf pan. This bread baked up nice and tall, but still baked completely through. I somehow resisted snagging a piece the night I baked it and was pleasantly surprised by how moist it was when I tried it the next day. Both the banana and the strawberry flavors come through clearly and the bread continued to stay moist for the few days that it lasted around our house!



Strawberry Banana Bread

Ingredients:
-1 cup all-purpose flour
-1 cup whole-wheat flour
-1 tsp baking soda
-1/2 tsp baking powder
-1/2 cup brown sugar
-1/2 cup granulated sugar
-1/2 cup butter or margarine
-2 eggs
-1/2 cup sour cream (I used low-fat)
-1/2 tsp vanilla
-3 mashed bananas
-1 cup chopped strawberries

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9 x 5 loaf pan.
2. In a small bowl, mix flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.
3. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars. Mix in eggs, vanilla, sour cream, and mashed bananas. Stir in chopped strawberries.
4. Add flour mixture into the wet ingredients and mix to combine.
5. Pour into greased loaf pan and bake for 60-65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
6. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan before removing and cooling fully on a wire rack.

Looking for other banana bread recipes? Check out my zucchini banana bread and whole wheat banana bread (with chocolate chips & pecans!)