Badada Bread (Dan's Banana Bread)

Wednesday night I had enough time to myself in the kitchen after Alex went to bed and before Dana got home from class to bake a loaf of "Badada Bread," probably our favorite baked item. I haven't made any since the day Dana went into labor, when I baked some for the nurses at the hospital (they loved it and treated us like royalty).

A couple of years ago, I started with a recipe from The Best Recipe, but have made several major changes to suit our tastes -- mostly less sugar, less fat, great taste. Here's what we ate:

Badada Bread (Dan's Banana Bread)

Dry Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups walnuts (1 cup chopped) or more (optional)
1/4-1/2 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)

Wet Ingredients:
3 very ripe bananas, smashed to a thick paste
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup plain yogurt
2-3 tablespoons butter (may be substituted)
2-3 tablespoons yogurt or mashed bananas, in addition to amounts above

In a large mixing bowl, shake dry ingredients together so they're uniform
In another large mixing bowl, stir wet ingredients together so they're uniform
Fold dry ingredients into wet ingredients, but don't over mix (leave chunky)

Grease & flour loaf pan, pour batter in.

Cook 75 minutes at 350 F on lower middle oven rack.

Let the loaf sit for 5 minutes before devouring.

This recipe also works very well as vegan badada bread - just substitute the eggs & butter with equivalent amounts of more bananas, more yogurt, apple sauce, smashed-up tofu, or other typical substitutes. Adding crushed flax seeds and wheat bran is also great. It is pretty hard to screw this recipe up, except if you under-bake it so the center of the loaf is gooey.

What do you like with your badada bread?

Note, this is how we do it "a mile high," for you flat-landers out there, you might have to fiddle with the temperature or the time or the flour or the moisture or something -- I still haven't figured out the whole altitude cooking math, I just know what works for banana bread in Berthoud.

Satisfied Customer.