Dress up your banana bread with nuts, spices or chocolate

One of the best ways to serve banana bread is with toasted nuts. Toasting nuts in the oven makes them taste better. Spread the nuts out on a rimmed baking sheet and heat the nuts in a 350 F oven until you can smell them, which takes about 5 minutes. Once the nuts cool, chop and stir them into the batter for any cake, cookie, muffin or quick bread. Follow this recipe with your kids.

Banana Bread

Servings: 10. Start to finish: 1 hour 15 minutes, plus cooling time

Prepare Ingredients:

Vegetable oil spray

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 very ripe bananas (skins should be speckled black)

3/4 cup sugar

2 large eggs

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1/4 cup plain yogurt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Gather Cooking Equipment

8 1/2-by-4 1/2-inch metal loaf pan

2 bowls (1 medium, 1 large)

Whisk

Large fork or potato masher

Rubber spatula

Toothpick

Oven mitts

Cooling rack

Cutting board

Chef’s knife

Start Cooking!

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 F. Spray bottom and sides of 8 1/2-by-4 1/2-inch metal loaf pan with vegetable oil spray.

In medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt.

Peel bananas and place in large bowl. Use large fork or potato masher to mash bananas until broken down but still chunky.

Add sugar, eggs, melted butter, yogurt, and vanilla to bowl with bananas and whisk until combined.

Add flour mixture and use rubber spatula to gently stir until just combined and no dry flour is visible. Do not overmixbatter should look thick and chunky. Use rubber spatula to scrape batter into greased loaf pan and smooth top.

Place loaf pan in oven. Bake until banana bread is golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 55 minutes.

Use oven mitts to remove banana bread from oven (ask an adult for help). Place loaf pan on cooling rack and let banana bread cool in pan for 15 minutes.

Use oven mitts to carefully turn loaf pan on its side and remove banana bread from pan. Let banana bread cool on cooling rack for at least 1 hour. Transfer to cutting board, slice, and serve.

Make It Your Way

Dress up banana bread with nuts, spices, citrus zest, or chocolate.

— Nutty Banana Bread

Stir 1/2 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped, into batter along with flour mixture.

— Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Stir 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips into batter along with flour mixture.

Nutrition information per serving: 260 calories; 74 calories from fat; 8 g fat (5 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 62 mg cholesterol; 228 mg sodium; 43 g carbohydrate; 2 g fiber; 20 g sugar; 4 g protein.