Two years ago, I would never have thought that a ten-pound bag of flour will be a regular in my pantry. Today, I can make this loaf from memory. This is based on my friend Franny's banana bread recipe that I tweaked a little bit. The basic loaf recipe below is a great blank canvass that I use mostly for banana and blueberry loaves. But I imagine the recipe can work for several fruits, like dried cranberries or fresh/frozen raspberries (hmmm... I have to try that).
Here's the basic loaf recipe:
1/2 cup (1 stick) melted unsalted butter
1 cup dark brown sugar (no need to pack the sugar, the fruit will sweeten the bread enough)
2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
2/3 cup buttermilk (I use reduced fat, so if you use regular, maybe you can use less)
1 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat oven at 350-degrees F. Sift flour, baking soda, and salt into a bowl. Add the vanilla to the buttermilk so the wet ingredients are already mixed together. Set these aside.
In a mixer, beat melted butter and sugar together until well blended. Add eggs one at a time, mixing until egg is incorporated before adding the next. Now add the dry and wet ingredients alternately, starting and ending with the dry ingredients. The dry ingredients will be added in three parts, mixing well before adding the next.
Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake for a minimum of 50 minutes. Depending on the flavor of the loaf you made, this may take longer. My banana bread is done in an hour and my blueberry loaf is done in exactly 57 minutes if I use fresh fruit, and one hour if I use frozen. I like to check if it's done every five minutes after the first 50 minutes (stick a toothpick in the heftiest part of the loaf; if it comes out clean, it's good). The crust should be golden brown and crunchy, while the inside is moist.
For the banana bread
3 large bananas, mashed
bittersweet chocolate chips (optional--eyeball the amount depending on how chocolatey you want it)
After beating the eggs into the butter mixture, add the mashed bananas and mix well before adding the dry ingredients. If you're adding the chocolate chips, these are folded into the batter in the end. Adding the chocolate makes this loaf extra yummy.
For the blueberry loaf
about 1 cup of fresh or frozen blueberries
Make the batter as indicated above. Fold in the blueberries gently so they don't get crushed, making sure that they are well-distributed. Add more blueberries according to your liking. After pouring the batter into the pan, I also like to sprinkle a little bit of brown sugar and ground cinnamon on top. This makes the loaf extra crunchy and tasty. Proceed as indicated above.
The money-saving tips here... great for using those overripe bananas that you would otherwise throw out (And bananas are cheap!). Also, I find that using frozen vs. fresh blueberries doesn't make much of a difference in taste, but frozen blueberries are much cheaper. These don't really take much time to make (most of it is spent just waiting for it to finish baking) and it's great to just have around for breakfast, snacking and even dessert. If you have the time to make it, it's actually cheaper to make the loaf instead of buying from the store.
Oh, I also found that using good vanilla does make a difference. It can be expensive, but I got a bottle of good quality vanilla extract from Marshall's at about the same price you'd get the cheap ones in the grocery store. So now I check this section every time I go there.
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