Spiced Banana Bread

I was bored this weekend and had "nothing" to do (other than study).  To procrastinate and waste more time, I went through my recipe box and debated on what I wanted to bake.  After half an hour or so of looking, I still couldn't decide on what to bake.   I went scavenging through my pantry and saw that I didn't have a lot of ingredients on hand to work with.  By then I was like "oh well, back to studying".  Then I looked over into my fruit bowl and saw five or six over ripped bananas that I have been meaning to use for my smoothies. Instead, I decided to make a batch of banana bread.  This is  a quick bread, so that was easy because I didn't have the time to make bread that involved rising time.

With the amount of bananas used in this recipe, the bread turns out very moist and flavorful.  I could literally eat banana bread everyday, maybe even every meal!

Banana Bread Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup (4 tbsp) butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 3 cups overripe bananas, mashed
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Lightly grease 9x5 inch loaf pan.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt.  
3. In another mixing bowl, cream together butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice.  Add in vanilla.
4. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas ( I use a potato masher) until well blended.
5. Pour the flour mixture into the banana mixture; stir until just combine.
6. Pour batter into the prepared loaf pan and top with crushed walnuts
7. Bake for 60-65 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. 

Note: Do not over stir the batter! (over stirred batter will make the bread dry and dense)