Banana Bread

White Nut Bread 
makes moist, tasty sandwiches for luncheons* and lunch boxes.


3/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp. soft shortening
1 egg
1 1/2 cups milk
3 cups GOLD MEDAL Flour
3 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
3/4 cup chopped nuts


Heat oven to 350° (mod.). grease a loaf pan, 9x5x3" or three 20 oz. cans. Mix sugar, shortening and egg thoroughly. Stir in milk. measure flour by dip-level-pour method or by sifting (see p. 6). Blend dry ingredients; stir in. Blend in nuts. Pour into pan or cans. Bake 60 to 70 min., or until toothpick stuck into center comes out clean. (Crack in top of loaf is characteristic.) Cool thoroughly before slicing with a thin, sharp knife. 


Banana Nut Bread
Make White Nut Bread (above) —except increase sugar to 1 cup. Use only 3/4 cup milk and add 1 cup mashed bananas. 

Again from the 1961 Betty Crocker's New Picture Cook Book, my famous Banana Bread. I've never actually made the White Nut Bread, just sort of the Banana Nut Bread variation on the page below the main recipe. I don't really follow either recipe.

I have no idea why, but I got it into my head that it needed to be a spiced banana bread, so I fiddled with the recipe over a period of about a year. I don't increase the sugar or decrease the milk. I double the butter and cream it with the sugar. Then I add the egg and the spices. After my experiments, I settled on 1 tsp. of cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. of nutmeg and 1/4 tsp. of cloves. I add two or three VERY overripe bananas and incorporate them. Then I blend in the milk, the baking powder and the salt, and lastly the flour. I never put nuts in my bread. I object to nuts in things on general principal, especially walnuts, which I hate, because they taste like sand.

I cook the bread according to the recipe, though I generally have to cook it longer because my oven temp is way off. I can never wait for it to cool so I immediately start to peel the yummy, crunchy crust off the top. It's good right out of the oven, or sliced into pieces and then frozen, microwaved and buttered. When I'm in a baking mood, I make a loaf to take to school for my mid-morning snack.


*From a time when people still used the word "luncheon."