Bonnie's Best Banana Bread

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We've all been there: you see a perfect bunch of bananas at the store, take them home, and overnight they get brown and gross. 

Luckily for all of us, brown bananas make the best banana bread! Over many years and many overripe bananas, I've perfected my recipe so that it's light, hearty, not too sweet, and requires minimal effort and cleanup. Whenever I have a perfect recipe like this, I prefer having an actual recipe card over trying to scroll through my Pinterest account looking for what I want. I've found my perfect recipe box that comes with customizable dividers, recipe cards, and a holder so the cards don't get gross sitting on the kitchen counter while you're baking.

I use 1/2 white flour and 1/2 whole wheat flour and add pecans when I have them (or chocolate chips, depending on my mood). And this is my favorite bread pan--it's Pyrex, so you know it's durable, it's the perfect size for so many things (especially when cooking/baking for one or two people), and it has handles for easy oven removal and a snap-on lid for keeping leftovers fresh.

Hold the phone! Want to know how to make this delicious recipe even better? Use creamy peanut butter instead of vegetable oil. The peanut butter not only increases the healthfulness of the bread by adding some protein and lowering the amount of fat, but it also improves the consistency and eliminates some of the crumbles you always get when slicing homemade bread. And it doesn't make it taste like peanut banana bread, for any banana bread purists.

I love having a nice warm slice of banana bread for breakfast with a cup of coffee and my homemade creamer--it's the perfect way to start a crisp fall day!

Apple Crumble

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I make a little money if you make a purchase using these links.

What do you have for dinner when you're home alone, pregnant, and the fridge is almost empty? Apple crumble sounded good, so that's what I made. It was quick and easy and made me feel a little bit better about watching this evening's debate. 

Who wouldn't want a nice big bowl of this for dinner? Or dessert, if you want to go all traditional. 

I started with a recipe from Tastes Better From Scratch and tweaked it and it was delicious. Here's how:

First, make the crumble. You can mix together the butter, flour, oats, cinnamon, sugar, and baking powder with a fork or a pastry cutter. Or you can do what I did and use your fingers, which is either way more fun or a way to justify not having a super cool pastry cutter like this one that I kind of totally want. 

Then, slice the apples and put them in a greased loaf pan. This would also be a good time to start preheating the oven. 

Next, mix up the sauce for the apples. I used the same coffee mug for melting the butter and making the sauce. Because I hate doing extra dishes. 

Pour sauce over apples, stir to combine. Then pour the crumble over the top of that and toss it in the oven for 25 minutes, or longer if you like soggier apples. And you get this beauty:

It's crisp, crumbly, and makes about 2 dinner-sized portions. Or more if you're going for dessert-sized portions. 

Ingredients

Crumble:

1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup oats

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp cinnamon

2 tbsp butter, softened

Apple goodness:

3 medium apples (I used granny smith)

1 tbsp butter, melted

2 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp flour

1 1/2 tbsp water

1/2 tbsp lemon juice

1/4 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Directions

Mix together all crumble ingredients. Set aside.

Thinly slice apples into loaf pan. 

Mix together all other ingredients for apple goodness. Pour over apples and stir.

Pour crumble over apples and bake at 375◦ for 25 minutes.

Enjoy with vanilla ice cream, if available.