Sunday afternoons are usually our family baking time. We come home from church, put on our comfy clothes and get our dinner and a treat ready with the whole family. And I love it. I think it’s one of my absolute favorite times of the week. Each week someone picks out a recipe and sometimes we spend a couple of weeks perfecting that recipe until we declare it our “family favorite.” Banana bread has been a trickier one for us as of late. We’ve tried several different recipes, but because of the high altitude where we live (Salt Lake Area) we have not succeeded. But I am here today to tell you that this latest recipe is a keeper! We’ve made it three times now and have officially declared it our family favorite.
One thing about high altitude baking is that either things don’t rise correctly and either fall or are mushy in the middle (yuck!). Or they turn out so dry. But I think we have found the middle with this bread recipe and so far it has risen for us perfectly.
This is the recipe that we used, and re-arranged until we liked it best. And one more thing you should know about our Sunday afternoon treat baking is that we make enough for an army. So we have some loaves to give away or freeze. You can cut this recipe into thirds (one loaf) and it will work great too.
High Altitude Banana Bread Recipe
Makes 3 large loaves
Ingredients:
- 1.5 sticks of butter, softened
- 2 cups of sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1/3 cup of oil
- 9 over-ripe bananas mashed
- 4-4.5 cups of AP flour
- 1.5 teaspoons of salt
- 1.5 teaspoons of baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla
- 1 bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine butter, eggs, oil, sugar and bananas in a mixing bowl and mix until well blended. Sift together flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder and combine with banana mixture. Add vanilla and chocolate chips and hand mix. Batter should be quite thick.
Pour into well-greased loaf pans and bake for 45-60 minutes until top is golden brown and toothpick comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 5 min. Release from the pans and then let cool on a wire rack. Can freeze for up to a month in a well-sealed container.
