Quick Banana Bread

For some reason, we always have a hard time eating all of the bananas in our bunch. There are usually a few that end up sitting on the counter, turn black, and then meet their fate with the garbage can. Not anymore... I have found the perfect solution for those nasty, overripe bananas!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup melted butter

3 overly ripe bananas

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup chopped nuts, optional

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour 1 (8 1/2" by 4 1/2") loaf pan of 10 mini (3 1/2" by 2 1/2") pans.

2. Melt butter and set aside to cool.

3. In mixing bowl, mash bananas well. Beat in the sugar and the eggs.

4. Combine flour, salt, and soda in a separate bowl. Add gradually to the sugar mixture.

5. Pour in melted butter and mix well. Stir in nuts, if desired.

6. Pour into prepared loaf pans. Bake 55 to 60 minutes for large loaf or 30 minutes for miniature loaves, or until well-browned and center is set.

Ashley's insights:

• Mashing bananas to a pulp is a freaking good stress reliever! I may need to make this more often... :o)
• I used a 9" by 6" bake pan and just sprayed PAM in it instead of shortening/flour.
• Also, this pan was too small for all of the batter (even though it is bigger than the loaf pan the recipe said to use). I was also able to bake 6 muffins along side the loaf of bread.
• I used crushed almonds, instead of walnuts, for the nuts because that is what I had in the pantry... turned out just as good!
• My loaf was plenty done after about 45 minutes, so watch it while its baking.