Easy Banana Bread

I am big on making things from scratch.  It saves money, I know what goes into it and nothing tastes better than homemade.  But, as the title of this blog points out, I'm also pressed for time and sometimes dragging all of the ingredients out (if I even have them) and then cleaning it all up is a PITA.  Have you ever looked at the ingredients in a box of banana bread?  There are no bananas in many of them.  Krusteaz does have some in its ingredient list, but they are pretty far down on the list.  As a general rule though I like Krusteaz brand products and looking at the label on the Banana Nut muffin mix it's pretty good.  Sure, it has enriched flour but... I'd be using that anyway.  It also has wheat and barley flour as well as ground flax seed and that's a plus.

So, back to making it...




YUM.

What you'll need.

1 box of Krusteaz Banana Nut muffin mix.
3 eggs
1/4 cup of vegetable oil (you could probably skip this depending on if you used more banana or wanted to sub applesauce, I like the richness it adds though)
4 (around 16 ounces mashed if you want to measure) very ripe bananas mashed up.
1/4 cup of chopped walnuts (optional add, but I like a little more)

Directions:
Mix it all together in a bowl (adding the walnuts at the very end).  Bake according to the box directions.

Voila.  Banana bread, with real bananas.  The awesome thing about boxed mixes like this is that they are very forgiving, and that's saying a lot when it comes to baking.    You could alter this recipe a lot to suit your tastes.  Less banana, butter instead of oil, applesauce instead of oil, no nuts, use 1 tablespoon flax seed and 3 tablespoons water to replace an egg...    It's a lot like these pumpkin muffins using cake mix.

And by the way - if you ever find yourself with very overripe bananas but don't have the time to bake at that very moment, just toss them in a zip-loc bag in the freezer.  When you are ready to make the bread let them sit on the counter for a few hours and you'll be ready to mash them up.

Happy Baking!