Banana Split Bread

Yucky Bananas = Yummy Bread!

Yucky Bananas

Yummy Bread 

I have never been one who is able to throw out a brown banana.  I use to take the "past due" bananas from the hotels I worked at so I could make banana bread for the staff, it just seems sad to throw them out.  This little personality flaw, if you will, has me always searching for new and different banana bread recipes.  Here is a recipe that sounded a bit sketchy when I first read it, but I happened to have all the ingredients on hand so I figured let's give it a whir.  So glad I tried it, it is great!  I discovered this recipe on one of my new favorite recipe websites:  www.crisco.com.  Dairy-Free!!  Well it has chocolate chips in it so not totally dairy free, but my little guy is starting to handle small amounts of dairy, chocolate chips now seem ok.  His 2nd birthday is in February and I have worked my hopes up way out of line with reality.  I seem to think he will be 100% cured of all allergies and will sleep through the night on the date of his 2nd birthday.  Sooo setting myself up for heartache, I know.

I had to change this recipe up a bit as it called for a banana bread mix.  I took a "from scratch" recipe and altered it slightly to adjust for all the moist fruit in this bread.  It also called for a sugary icing, it is plenty sweet enough with all the fruit and sugar.  I skipped the icing and am glad I did.  The bread is perfect and not at all like a creepy fruit bread.  It also seems like the sort of thing that would have been invented by a home cook for a cooking contest so I will call it practice for the future.

Banana Split Bread 
Source:  Variation on recipe found here:  Crisco Banana Split Bread

INGREDIENTS
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup smashed bananas (or a bit more, I used 3 old bananas)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
8 oz can sliced pineapple, then chop it small
1/3 cup diced maraschino cherries
1/3 cup chocolate chips
optional - 1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Prepare a 9x5 loaf pan with baking spray or Crisco/flour.

Cream together the sugar, banana, oil and eggs with electric beater.  In separate bowl mix flour, baking soda and salt.  Slowly sift the flour mixture into the bananas until batter is completely mixed.  Drain the canned pineapple and chop it into small chunks (you could use crushed, but it seems like it would be too wet).  Chop the cherries into quarters so they are decent bites in the bread.  Add pineapple, cherries and chocolate chips to the batter and fold in mixing by hand, add nuts now if you desire.  Pour batter into prepared pan and bake at 375 degrees for 50-60 minutes.

Enjoy!