Buttermilk Banana & Strawberry Bread

I am currently obsessed with using buttermilk in baking. If a recipe ever called for buttermilk I would usually just substitute it by adding lemon juice to milk, but never again! This fantastic and extremely moist Cornmeal Buttermilk Cake with Chocolate Buttermilk Frosting (and just to inform you, this is seriously the BEST chocolate frosting I have ever tasted) from Evil Shenanigans definitely changed my mind.

Buttermilk just makes everything so moist and adds a unique and subtle flavor to whatever it is baked into. Since making that cake, I have made my family and I's favorite chocolate cake, (which I use as the base for any recipe that I make which involves chocolate cake) into like the best cake EVER (according to my family and I)! I just substituted buttermilk for regular milk and frosted it with the chocolate buttermilk frosting. I have also made these Blueberry Cornmeal Pancakes, which then leads me to this Buttermilk Banana Strawberry Bread. It is a fabulous quick bread recipe that is very moist, buttery, rich, and so delicious! It is perfect to eat plain, or you can smear it with butter, toast it and spread on jam, or eat it warm with some nutella or drizzled with honey.

Needless to say, I am in love with buttermilk and will be using buttermilk in my baking more and more!

Buttermilk Banana Strawberry Bread: (adapted from Two Peas and Their Pod)

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup mashed bananas (about 3 medium sized bananas)
• 4 tablespoons buttermilk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste or vanilla extract
• 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup diced strawberries, plus 2 whole srawberries thinly sliced for the top

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 1 large loaf pan or 4 small loaf pans (I used 4 small loaf pans). You can also make banana muffins with this recipe, as well. Set pans aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs, mashed bananas, buttermilk, and vanilla until the batter is well mixed.

Add in the flour, baking powder, salt and soda. Mix until well combined. Gently fold in diced strawberries. Divide batter into greased and floured pans and top with thinly sliced strawberries. Bake for 50-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Let bread cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Loosen the bread with a knife and carefully remove from pan. Cool completely on rack. Slice and serve once cooled.

Banana Raspberry Crumble Bread

This banana bread turned out to be the best banana bread I have ever made and my most favorite one. This bread was sooooo delicious and it smelled so yummy while it was baking. It was so moist, flavorful, and sweet with the crunchy crumb topping and slighty tart from the beautiful sweet little red raspberries. This bread is perfect for breakfast which I enjoyed this morning with a glass of milk or it is great for a snack! This bread is to die for so I reccomend getting in the kitchen and baking this now!

Doesn't it look so pretty!?

Banana Raspberry Bread:

-1/2 cup butter, softened

-1 1/4 cups sugar

-2 large eggs

-2 ripe bananas, mashed

-1 1/2 cups flour

-1 tsp. baking powder

-3/4 tsp. baking soda

-1/3 cup buttermilk

-1 tsp. vanilla extract

-1 cup fresh raspberries

Crumb Topping:

-1/2 cup granulated sugar

-1/3 cup flour

-1/4 cup butter

In a small bowl, combine sugar and flour. Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9x5-inch loaf pan well.

In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar at medium speed until fluffy. Add eggs and bananas, beating well.

In a small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Add to butter mixture alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour mixture, stirring well after each addition. Stir in vanilla. Lightly fold in raspberries.

 Pour half of the batter into the loaf pan and top evenly with half of the crumb topping mixture. Pour remaining batter on top and bake for 25 minutes (reserving the rest of the crumb topping in the fridge). Sprinkle remaining crumb topping on the partially baked bread and bake for another 25-35 minutes. Let cool in pan for 20 minutes. Remove from pan, and cool completely on wire rack.

Chocolate Banana Muffins with Peanut Butter Chips

Bananas, bananas, bananas.....I love bananas and the weird thing about that is that just a couple years ago I did not like them at all!...there was something about the texture that I didn't like, but now I eat one basically everyday....weird huh?! But anyways, I had some ripe bananas to use up and I found a recipe for double chocolate banana bread on The Sisters Cafe blog (you should check their blog out they have a lot of yummy recipes) for double chocolate banana bread that looked really yummy and I wanted to make something different then just regular banana bread. Instead of making bread I decided to make mine into muffins and instead of chocolate chips, I used peanut butter chips because I love the combination of chocolate, peanut butter, and bananas.

These muffins turned out good and were moist and very chocolately! My brother especially really, really enjoyed them a lot, in fact, I think he ate most of them by himself! I asked him what he liked about them and he said that he loved the chocolate and peanut butter combination with the hint of the banana flavor in the background.

Chocolate Banana Muffins with Peanut Butter Chips (recipe from The Sisters Cafe, adapted by me)

Ingredients:

-1 cup sugar

-1/3 cup vegetable oil

-1 1/4 cups mashed bananas (about 3)

-1 tsp. vanilla extract

-1 1/2 cups flour

-1/2 cup cocoa

-1 tsp. baking soda

-1/2 tsp. salt

-1 cup peanut butter chips

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 12 cup muffin pan well with cooking spray, including the top of the pan, or line with paper liners.

2. Beat sugar, eggs, and oil in a large bowl at medium speed until combined. Beat in bananas and vanilla at low speed. Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl; beat into banana mixture at low speed just until combined. Stir in 3/4 cup of peanut butter chips into batter.

3. Spoon batter evenly into prepared muffin pann (I use my ice cream scoop) and sprinkle the remaining peanut butter chips on tops of the muffins. Bake about 15-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool about 10-15 minutes. Remove from pan, cool completely on wire rack.

Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread

Mmmmmm.....this cinnamon swirl banana bread was really really delicious! I found this recipe here Kim's blog Lovin' From the Oven at http://www.lovintheoven.com/ and Kim said that it was the most amazing banana bread and she always has yummy recipes, so, I knew that I had to try it out and boy am I glad that I did. It was so flavorful and moist and the cinnamon and sugar swirl in the middle looked so pretty and was very tasty. The top was slightly crunchy which I loved since the inside was so soft and moist. It kind of took me back to when I was younger and my dad would make me cinnamon and sugar toast for breakfast basically everyday because it was my favorite! This is a very simple and quick recipe to put together and everyone really loved it. I definitely reccomend giving it a try!

For the bread:

-3 over-ripe bananas, smashed up

-1/3 cup melted butter

-3/4 cup sugar

-1 egg, beaten

-1 teaspoon vanilla

-1 teaspoon baking soda

-dash of salt

-1 1/2 cups flour

For the swirl:

-1/3 cup sugar

-1 tablespoon cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a loaf pan. (I used a 9x5.)

2. Mix bananas, butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla together. Sprinkle baking soda and salt around on top of banana mixture. Gently stir in flour. Be careful not to over-mix.

3. In a small dish, mix together the swirl ingredients.

4. Add 1/2 of the batter to the loaf pan and then sprinkle half of the cinnamon-sugar mixture all over the batter in the pan. Add the rest of the batter, and then sprinkle the rest of the cinnamon-sugar on top.

5. Bake for 50-60 minutes.