Today is the 3rd anniversary of my blog! Another year has flown past so fast I can hardly believe it! I still enjoy my little corner of the foodie world and appreciate every one of my followers. You all make it worth the time I spend writing and posting pictures of my recipes. Here’s to another year of sharing food!
To honor the start of my 4th year I am reposting my famous banana bread recipe with a twist- maraschino cherries! It’s a sort of banana split bread. The only thing missing is the chocolate syrup and you could drizzle that over your slice of bread if you’d like! I thought it was excellent sliced and eaten plain.
First I mashed my bananas with a potato masher. It’s a round disk with holes and gets the bananas almost smooth. You could use a blender or food processor but mashing the bananas is my thing. I like to physically work at pulverizing them until they’re a creamy mass of banana goodness. (Yeah I might be overthinking that. Like I said, it’s my thing). I added the eggs, oil, buttermilk and vanilla to the banana mixture and stirred well.
In a separate bowl I whisked together the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. I added the dry ingredients to the wet just until mixed.
I chopped the cherries finely and added them to the bowl, folding and stirring them in.
I poured the batter into two pans as I’d doubled the recipe. I don’t often double it, I prefer to make each recipe separately to prevent having to stir it extra long and that makes the bread tough. I like the bread soft and almost falling apart in my hand tender. I did double it this time because I was doing a lot of baking and time was a factor.
I slid the pans into my preheated oven and baked the loaves for 1 hours. I toothpick tested it and the toothpick was clean. I placed the pans on a rack for 10 or 15 minutes, then ran a knife around the outsides of the pans and eased the loaves out onto the rack to cool further.
I really loved the flavor of maraschino cherries in my favorite banana bread. My secret is to let the bananas get very brown, brown all over in fact, so that they are at their ultimate flavor and sweetness. Making sure your bananas are super ripe will insure you have the best bread ever!
Banana Split Bread
1 3/4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 bananas
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup finely chopped maraschino cherries
Preheat oven to 350 °F Grease bottom of a 12″ x 3 1/2″ loaf pan or loaf pan of your choice.
Mash bananas then combine with eggs, oil, buttermilk and vanilla.
Stir together flour, sugar, soda and salt in a separate bowl. Add flour mixture to wet mixture and stir just until combined. Stir in cherries.
Pour into greased pan and bake for 1 hour or until toothpick tests done.
Let cool in pan for 10 minutes then turn out onto a rack and cool completely. Store in a covered container at room temperature.
Freezes well
Hi, I was wondering in this recipe did you use self rising or all purpose flour. I am not a baker so I really want to try this. I love banana splits. Thanks
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I use regular flour. Enjoy!
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Happy Anniversary, Audrey! 🙂 Your banana-split bread looks delicious!
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Thanks, Anna!
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Happy Anniversary, Audrey! And this is definitely going in the to try pile. Instead of drizzling it with chocolate syrup, I am going to add chocolate chips. Julie.
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Thanks, Julie! I don’t care for chocolate with bananas. Good idea though! I was thinking of some crushed pineapple and whipped cream.
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That would also be also be fantastic. I’ll be playing with this one a lot as I have a bunch of bananas to use.
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The bread looks so tasty. Great idea, to add the maraschino cherries. Happy anniversary! 🙂
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Thanks! I’d stand in front of the fridge and eat cherries from the jar!
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lol better add then to the cake before they’re gong! 🙂
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