Banana Bread

About two years ago I found an old Campus Crusade for Christ cookbook at a thrift store that some daughter had given her mother in May of 1974 (there was a personal note written in the front). If you paid attention to my very first post on this blog, you will remember that I have a weakness for cookbooks, especially ones that church groups have compiled. The cookbooks I use the most are ward cookbooks! I have something like eight of them. Maybe nine. Anyway, this banana bread recipe comes from this book called "Delectable Collectibles" and the person who submitted the recipe was named Lee Etta Lappen. I see this name and envision an elderly Scandinavian woman puttering around the kitchen with a half apron on slowly stirring the ingredients together with a wooden spoon. That visual image is what made me try this recipe. How can it not be good when a grandma makes it? (My extended family shouldn't answer that question. They should consider it rhetorical.) Anyway, on to the recipe.

Just as a side note I can NEVER write the word banana without having a flashback to the years when my sister was on a school cheer squad/drill team and had a period where she went through the house regularly doing a chant that spelled bananas over and over.

Banana Bread
by Lee Etta Lappen
(My notes to the recipe are in parentheses)

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 egg, well beaten
3 bananas, mashed - over ripe are best
3 Tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
2 cups flour

Cream sugar and shortening. Add well beaten egg and bananas. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. (It will be thick batter.) Bake in a lightly greased loaf pan at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. (Although, I have to bake it for closer to 55 minutes in my oven.)

This has a slightly baking powder/soda-ish taste to it but not nearly as bad as other banana bread recipes I've tried. The kids love this one as well as one of our other favorites that I'll hopefully get up here soon.