Banana Bread

Banana bread... or muffins, are kinda special to me.

First of all, it was the one and only thing that my mom baked (this is her recipe by the way). So my association with banana bread isn't associated with other baked goods like cookies or even muffins. It's almost a genre of it's own.

The genre it belongs to is Sunday nights when my mom would stay up late to make banana muffins because she had Sundays off, and why she always waited till late at night I'll never know. But this meant that we had muffins for the week, and living in a house where sweets were not really welcomed, was awesome.

My second association with banana bread is the time I spent in Banff working at a ski resort. This was probably one of the best times of my life, where I met amazing people from all over the world. At the resort, I was a barista at the coffee shop and my favourite baked good they made was this moist and dense banana bread that I would eat almost every day.

It was here where I understood the combination of butter and banana bread. It's as if were invented simply as a vehicle to transport butter into my mouth.

The other thing about banana bread not being associated with baked goods is the way I make them. There is no mixing dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately like most muffin recipes. It all goes in one bowl where I mix it together simultaneously. It's just the way my mom makes them and they always turn out fantastic.

Enjoy!

Banana Bread/Muffins

Makes one loaf or 12-14 muffins

• 1/2 cup of oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup of granulated sugar
• 2 cups of flour
• 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder
• 1 tsp of baking soda
• 1 tsp of salt
• 3 very ripe bananas mashed
• 1/4 cup of sour cream
• 1 tsp of vanilla
• 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips or walnuts (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease loaf pan or muffin tins.
2. In a large bowl mix together oil, eggs and sugar. Then mix in flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt until well combined. Next mix in the banans, sour cream and vanilla. Once all ingredients are combined, mix in the chocolate chips or walnuts if desired.
3. For banana bread, pour the batter into the pan and bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
4. For banana muffin , divide the batter among each muffin tin, the batter may fill up more than just 12 muffins tins and bake for 20-25 minutes (23 minutes for my oven), or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
5. For both loaf and muffins, let it cool in the tins for 10 minutes before you transfer to a cooling rack.