Broke Butt Banana Bread: Baking is easy!

Today's recipe is a super simple little treat that always gets me lots of compliments. If you've used my handy-dandy Pantry List from the previous post, you'll also have just about every single bit of this on hand. You know what that means? It's easy and cheap. This Broke Butt Mama LOVES the sound of that!

Now, I know that bananas aren't on my Pantry List, but if you are like me, you are always buying them anyway. They are cheap, highly nutritious, and they have a multitude of uses (snacks, peanut butter sandwich filler, smoothie smoothers, etc.) Bananas are wonderful! But you know what else they are? Highly perishable. There are always those two or three that sit ignored on the counter until they look like this:

Totally gross, right? But, these little babies are about to rock your world. Prepare to meet Mama's Broke Butt Banana Bread! First, gather up all your ingredients. You'll need: All-Purpose Flour, salt, baking soda, brown sugar, vegetable oil, 2 eggs, and your over-ripe bananas. (They don't have to be THIS over-ripe, but the browner the better... to a point. You wouldn't want to use them after they pass the stage shown in my photo.) Your necessary hardware will be: 2 bowls (one small, one medium), measuring cups, measuring spoons, a fork, a loaf pan, a napkin, oven mitts, and an oven set to 350 degrees.

Peel those bananas and stick all their gooey goodness into your small bowl and mash them to smithereens. 

In your larger bowl, pour 1/2 cup vegetable oil and 1 cup brown sugar. Make sure that you really pack your brown sugar into the measuring cup well and that you level off the top as much as possible. You want exactly 1 cup, and not packing it down and getting rid of the excess on top will mess that up. Brown sugar is sneaky, y'all. It fluffs up all innocent like, but if you squish it in, you'll see that what you thought was a cup might only be 3/4! Squish it! Don't let it lie to you like that! After you've dumped it in the bowl, mix those two together.

Look how pretty that packed brown sugar sits on the oil in my bowl! It's been properly squished.

Now, mix those two together until they are completely combined, as shown the second picture above.
Next, you are going to add in the two eggs and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Mix that up, then add in 1 and 1 1/2 cups flour and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda.

After you've added your dry ingredients, (That means flour and other dry, powdery substances. You'll see me say that a lot on this blog.) Go ahead and start mixing again. At first it will look like it isn't wanting to stir in. Just keep going and soon it will be gorgeously smooth. Don't stop until it does.

Guys, I am using a fork this whole time. You don't need a mixer or anything fancy for this. This is just an old fashioned, simple recipe. It is too easy! 

Now that you have that lovely, smooth batter, go ahead and dump in your bananas. Mix those up together.

Inspiration point: You aren't stuck with just bananas here. You can add in nuts, chocolate or peanut butter chips, anything your heart desires. You could also do any other fruit other than bananas... or even zucchini! When you get to this stage in the batter, it is yours to command. Go crazy! 

But, for now... let's go bananas.

 At this point, we will plop a drop of oil into our loaf pan and smear it all over the inside with a napkin. Then, we will pour... and then scrape all our battery fabulousness into the pan.

Notice the texture change after the bananas are added? It became a little looser. That is because we added moisture with the addition of fruit. We want that. It makes the bread light and moist when it is finished. Speaking of, pop that loaf pan into the oven you pre-heated to 350 degrees, on the middle rack for 1 hour. We are baking on a low temperature for a longer time to allow the bread time to gently rise and cook all the way through. When it is finished, use a clean butter knife to gently scrape around the sides of the pan. This helps to separate the loaf from the pan so it's easily removed. You can also leave it in the pan and skip that last step if you like.

I typically remove the bread from the pan, set it out on a cooling rack for a bit, then transfer it to my glass domed cake stand. It never lasts that long at my place. If you give it a try, feel free to let me know what you thought about it! 

Broke Butt Banana Bread

1 1/2 cups All-Purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 cup Brown Sugar (light brown is all I ever use)
1/2 cup Vegetable Oil (plus a splash for greasing the pan)
2 eggs
2-3 over-ripe bananas

Pre-heat the oven to 350.
In a small bowl, mash bananas until very few lumps remain.
In a large bowl, combine brown sugar and oil. Add eggs and salt. Mix well. Add flour and baking soda. Stir until completely smooth. Add bananas next. Stir until combined.
Grease your pan, pour in the batter, and bake for 1 hour.

Y'all, I sure hope you try this recipe. I just know you're gonna love it if you do. Don't worry one bit about that hour bake time, either. Pop it in before you sit down to dinner and it'll be ready for dessert!
Our next post will come on Wednesday. In that post, I will share how I make my menu plans for the week and my grocery list tips and tricks.
Y'all have a great week, and remember... Mama loves ya!