Gold Medal Flour's Best-Ever Banana Bread

Suzanna Marie's Note:

The recipe is not mine. It's from a bag of Gold Medal Flour, so if you don't care for it...that's o.k. It certainly has what it takes to make it a keeper for me, though. No muss. No fuss. It's light, moist, and makes two perfect 8 X 4 loaf pans. Takes about an hour to bake. P.S. It needs an added banana to really enhance the flavor, though.

• Total Time: 1 hrs 10 mins
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 1 hrs

Ingredients:

Serves: 32

Yield: 2.0 loaves

• 1 ¼ cups sugar
• ½ cup butter or ½ cup margarine , softened
• 2 eggs
• 1 ½ cups mashed very ripe bananas (3-4 medium)
• ½ cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup chopped nuts , if desired

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottoms only of 2 (8X4 inch) loaf pans.
2. In large bowl, mix sugar and butter. Add eggs, bananas (increase recipe by one banana), buttermilk and vanilla; beat with electric mixer on medium speed until smooth.
3. Stir in flour, baking soda, salt and nuts (if using) just until moistened. Pour batter into pans.
4. Bake for one hour or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans to cooling rack. Cool about 1 hour before slicing.

Reviews

[Boomette]

I made half recipe to have only 1 loaf. I baked it 60 minutes like you said and it was perfect. The taste is amazing. I used margarine and less sugar than written. I didn't use the nuts cause I didn't have time to chop them LOL Thanks Suzanna :) Made for 123 hit wonders

[Shanny California]

This IS the best banana bread I've ever had. I used 3 bananas but they were super ripe. My whole family loved it. I'm definitely keeping this one.

[SimplyLiv]

This recipe is easy, quick, and very good. I gave it four only stars because I think the original recipe could use more bananas. On my second try, I added an additional banana and that brought it to five stars. Very tasty, moist, and it freezes very well, too. I have made it a few times since with variations, such as baking in mini four loaf pans (reduce baking time to 40 minutes) and adding Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips. Good stuff!