AANHPI Heritage Month Cookbook: Sunu’s Parents’ Banana Bread Recipe

We were not a big making sweets at home family when I was a kid but once in a while when I came home I could tell by the delicious smells that my parents had taken the going-bad-bananas and made it into this yummy treat.  I asked my Dad for the recipe once on the phone in September 2016 and am now copying it down from the back of this junk mail envelope so that you all can enjoy it too and add it to your Spring 2020 Quarantine Baking repertoire. Enjoy and think of a 10-year-old Indian kid in the 1980s in the Midwest having a happy moment of joy before getting to her homework, and any of the other things some of our immigrant parents managed to do, in the middle of their more than full-time working grinds, that brought us delight.

Directions:

  • Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees
  • Butter and flour one loaf pan
Mix together:
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup butter (room temperature)
  • Add:
  • 2 eggs (beat the eggs and add them to the mix)
  • 3-4 bananas (smooch them up and then add to the mix)
Combine separately:
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 cups flour
Combine the wet and dry ingredients (old-school with a hand mixer or by hand or with any kind of mixer). Optional: Add chopped nuts (any kind/any amount) to the batter
  • Pour the batter into the buttered/floured loaf pan.
  • Bake at 350 degrees for about one hour – ovens may differ – would check it starting at 45 min
  • Take out of the oven once an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

 

Sunu and her parents
Sunu and her parents