Banana Bread and Friendship
I am finally ready to share my new go-to banana bread recipe! My most requested one too (at least by my dad)!
Some of you know that I have tried many, many banana bread recipes. Most of them have been delicious but this is one I’ve kept coming back to. It’s a variation of the Banana Bread recipe by Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger that you can find on the Food Network website. I’ve just added a few things that I think enhance the flavor a little.
I wanted to say a few words (ok maybe more than a few) on friendship because every time I make banana bread, memories of baking with friends on Friday evenings in college flood my mind. Almost every weekend, for maybe a couple semesters, a few friends and I would get together and bake a couple things, and usually one of those things would be banana bread. We did a different recipe every time so we learned what worked well in banana bread, or at least what we loved.
On those nights, we would bake together, watch movies, have dinner, and catch each other up on our weeks and how we were all doing. It was something I always looked forward to. It was time where we could relax and be ourselves. It became a tradition that I now dearly miss.
God has blessed me with many people that I have been able to call friends throughout my life, whether for just a season or still to this day. He has placed them in my life at perfect times and for a purpose.
Friends are those who stick by you and stick up for you, those who pick you up when you’re down and kindly tell you the truth even when it hurts. They’re ones you get to make fun memories with and do things you love together whether that’s baking, line dancing, playing games, painting, hiking…the list goes on.
In the Bible, there are so many examples of true friendships. In 1 Samuel, Jonathan and Daniel had a friendship in which “Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself,” (Holy Bible, 1 Samuel 18:1). Jonathan risked his relationship with his father to protect the life of David, whom God had anointed as king. In the book of Ruth, we see a friendship between Ruth and Naomi, two widows (a daughter-in-law and mother-in-law) who supported each other through deep sorrow. Ruth ended up making an enormous vow to stay by Naomi’s side for the rest of their lives and follow the God Naomi followed (Ruth 1:16-17). And in Exodus, we see God bring together Moses and Aaron to support each other and work together, with deep trust, in leading the Israelites out of slavery and towards freedom.
These are just a few of many friendships you can find throughout the Bible, and I encourage you to read these beautiful stories. But most notably we find in the Word that Jesus call’s us friends of His too! How amazing is that that the God of all creation, our Lord and Savior, calls us friends.
“‘My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit — fruit that will last — and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.'”
Holy Bible, John 15:12-17
I just want to say a HUGE THANK YOU to all those throughout my life who I have been able to call a friend. I cannot thank you enough.
And here is that banana bread recipe I mentioned… I hope you enjoy.
Holy Bible. New International Version, Zondervan, 2011.
Recipe adapted from Banana Bread recipe by Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feninger https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/banana-bread-recipe-1969572
Banana Bread
Ingredients
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 8 tablespoons butter, softened
- 2 large eggs
- 3 ripe bananas
- 1 tablespoon milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt (or 3/4 tsp if using salted butter)
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup chopped pecans (or other mix-ins; optional)
- Turbinado sugar and cacao nibs for sprinkling on top (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Spray a 9×5 inch loaf pan.
- In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a team, waiting until mixed in before adding another.
- In a small bowl, use a fork to mash the bananas. To this, add the milk, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
- To the large bowl, add in the banana mixture and mix until combined. Then add the baking powder, baking soda, and salt and stir in. Add in the flour and chopped pecans (or any other mix-ins) and mix until just combined.
- Pour the batter into the loaf pan, smooth with a spatula, and sprinkle with turbinado sugar and cacao nibs.
- Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes, removing from oven when a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a rack for about 10 minutes, then remove the bread from the pan to finish cooling.
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