Banana Bread

I've been wanting to bake banana bread for a while, so as soon as my landlord claimed my oven fixed, I started gathering the ingredients I needed for when I had time. So on Saturday I finally made it! And it worked! Actually, I was impatient and so the bananas weren't really overripe and it still worked great. It wasn't sweet, which I didn't want anyway. My oven still has a lot of kinks that I don't understand yet so after 50 minutes the top got a little overbrown in some places but that's okay that was my fault. Next time if I make this recipe again, I want to try adding the walnuts (and using reallly ripe bananas)! I used Fage 0% greek yogurt because I forgot about buying plain yogurt and that's what I had. Next time I might want to try using not low or nonfat yogurt, but I love greek yogurt so I might still have to use that.

Banana Bread
Adapted from Cook's Illustrated by Christina

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups walnuts, toasted and chopped coarse (optional)
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 very ripe, soft, darkly speckled large bananas, mashed well (about 1 1/2 cups)
1/4 cup plain yogurt
2 large eggs, beaten lightly
6 tbsp of unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Turn on the oven to 350F.

Butter and flour the bottom of a loaf pan.

Mix the mashed banana, eggs, yogurt, melted butter and vanilla in a large bowl.

Stir the walnuts into the banana mixture (doing so will reduce the risk of over-mixing).

Sift flour, sugar, salt and baking soda into the banana mixture.

Using a rubber spatula, very, very, very gently mix the flour with the wet ingredients. Stop as soon as the dry ingredients are moistened. The batter should be chunky instead of smooth.

Bake for 55 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean after inserted into the bread.

Let the bread cool in the pan; slice and serve.