Classic Blueberry Banana Bread

Banana bread is one of my favorite thing to make! This is another staple recipe my mother always made growing up. She’d send us to school with a little piece wrapped in tin foil to accompany our lunches. I have vivid memories of my 3rd grade lunch cafeteria, opening that tin foil & enjoying my piece!

I’ve made so many different versions of this bread it’s unreal. You can make it plain (no blueberries), with other fruits (raspberries are great!), or with nuts like walnuts. It’s really whatever you prefer. The basic bread recipe stays the same.

Typically I don’t bake. Partly because I can never get things right. I’m talking cookies, cakes, etc.. I realized over the years it’s because I like when I don’t have to follow a recipe to an exact T. And I really don’t have the patience to let cookie dough cool, or not frost a cake while it’s still hot. One of my flaws, I know! I like making breads because they’re more forgiving than regular baking. A little extra flour? Not going to matter. A little heavy on the vanilla? YUM! Really the only thing you MUST make sure you do in any banana bread recipe is to mix the wet and dry ingredients SEPARATELY, and then combine them together. Oh, and don’t overmix your batter!

One extra little tip is about the bananas. I usually don't ever plan to make this bread. I just wait until I have a few almost rotten bananas chilling in the freezer before I decide to bake this! So when your fresh bananas are about to go bad, peel them and put them in a ziplock bag. I actually mush them up while in the bag which makes things easier come bake time. Freeze them & keep adding to them when you have ripe bananas you won't use. Once I have 3-4 frozen bananas, I pull them out and make a bread! This way waste is lessened and you can make a bread when you have the time. Just make sure to peel your bananas before you freeze them!

You can also take this recipe and make muffins with it if you’d like. Just use a muffin tin instead and check them after 20 or so minutes, and keep adding 5 minutes on until a stick in the middle of them comes out clear of any batter.

The perfect bite of this blueberry banana bread is after it’s cooled a bit, but still warm. A moist center bite slathered with some butter is in my opinion, the perfect bite! Enjoy!

Servings: 8

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 1 hour (or more if needed, see notes below)

Ingredients:

- 4 overly ripe bananas, mashed

- 2 cups flour + 1 tbsp.

- 1 tsp baking powder

- 1 tsp baking soda

- 1 tsp salt

- 1 tsp cinnamon

- ¾ cup granulated sugar

- 2 eggs

- ½ cup vegetable oil

- 1 tsp vanilla

- 1 pint blueberries (or any other add in you’d like)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350*.

2. Grease a loaf pan.

3. Mash bananas with a fork.

4. In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients with a whisk (not sugar).

5. In another bowl with a hand mixer, or the bowl of your stand mixer, add sugar and eggs and beat on low.

6. Add in bananas, oil, and vanilla and continue to mix

7. Slowly add in dry ingredient mixture and mix until JUST incorporated. DO NOT OVER MIX BATTER.

8. In a small bowl, add blueberries and reserved 1 tbsp. of flour. Gently mix until blueberries are coated in flour.

9. Gently fold blueberries into batter with a rubber spatula.

10. Pour into greased loaf pan.

11. Bake for 1 hour. Check doneness with a knife or skewer into the center of the bread. If it comes out clean, your bread is done. If batter sticks to the object, continue cooking in 5 minute increments until it comes out clean.