I come from a long line of cooks and bakers. Most of the men in my family love to grill, smoke meat, and cook. The women in my family love baking and cooking. Either way, we have never been short on good food at any of our family gatherings.
However, we all have that one cousin, don’t we? That would be Melissa in my family. We grew up next door to each other and shes just like a sister to me. Melissa has a heart of gold, but she did not get the love of cooking. In our old family and church cookbooks, her recipes are easy to spot because her instructions are always “mix and bake.”
To my surprise, she actually shared a recipe with me a few weeks ago. A real recipe! No pinches of this and a little bits of that. With the addition of instant pudding and sour cream, this is wonderfully moist banana bread with great flavor.
This recipe makes two loaves of banana bread. Melissa’s recipe had no pecans, but I added them to mine.
Banana Bread
Ingredients
- 2/3 cup vegetable oil
- 4 large eggs
- 2 cups mashed ripe bananas
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 (3.5-oz.) package vanilla instant pudding
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350℉. Spray two (8.5 x 4.5 x 2.5-inch)loaf pans with nonstick cooking spray, set aside.
- In a large bowl whisk together oil and eggs. Add bananas and mix.
- Add the flour, sugar, pudding, salt and baking soda and stir.
- Fold in the sour cream and vanilla.
- Spoon batter evenly in both pans. Bake 1 hour or until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.
- Cool in pan for 10 minutes. Remove to wire rack and cool completely.