Easy Banana Bread

Today is the last weekday of Spring Break, so I wanted to make my girls a special breakfast.  This banana bread is Madison's favorite!  It's baking in the oven right now, and it smells so good.  This is a simple quick bread, and you can make any additions your family likes, i.e. pecans, walnuts, cranberries, raisins, chocolate chips, blueberries, strawberries, etc.  You can also replace the banana with pumpkin puree to make pumpkin bread.

This bread takes no time to assemble and less than an hour to bake.  It's best served warm with some butter on top. 

Ingredients:

1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour a loaf pan.

In a large bowl or stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until creamy.  Add the eggs and vanilla extract and mix well. Add the flour, baking soda, and cinnamon and mix just until combined. Add the mashed bananas and mix until incorporated.

Pour banana bread batter into prepared loaf pan.  Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until toothpick tester comes out clean.  Serve warm with butter.  Enjoy!

Note:  This banana bread is very moist, so it's best to store it at room temperature in the loaf pan lightly covered with foil.