Peanut Butter Banana Bread

We go through a lot of bananas at our house.  Honestly most of them end up in a protein shake made by my 17 year old.  There are a lucky few who get dipped in peanut butter and downed as a healthy after school snack. And then there are bananas that escape the aforementioned and are thus set aside for a higher purpose; banana bread.  Depending on my mood, there are a few different recipes that I love to mix up with over-ripe bananas.  Today is a peanut butter theme.

When I start off a batch of banana bread I do it with three bananas that are very over-ripe.  The riper the better.  Because I want the bread to come out cleanly from the pan I like to take parchment paper and trace the bottom of the pan and leave one sheet in the bottom of the pan.  Then I spray the parchment and the sides of the pan with a cooking spray.  It's a good idea to cut out lots of these at once.  I store them right in my pan.  It's like an inbox for parchment paper!

For this recipe I lightly folded peanut butter chips into the batter and then topped the filled pans (filled to within 1 inch of the top) with a mixture of peanut butter chips and 1 TB of brown sugar.  The pans shown above are 3 inches wide and 7 inches long from inside to inside.  My kids know that I like to leave one on the counter for them and take one to a friend, so although this would fit nicely in once larger pan for one loaf..I choose to turn it in to two.

And then they come out of the oven about an hour later looking like a million bucks and the kids are already telling me I really don't need to give one away.  Yes...that is a smear of peanut butter on top!

Peanut Butter Banana Bread Sweet Suppertime

Preheat your oven to 350 and prepare your pans for baking.

Mash up 3 medium ripened bananas and set aside.  You should end up with 1 1/2 cup-ish.  Be close.  If you are more than a couple tablespoons off add a bit more sour cream in that section

In a bowl combine the following and set aside:

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

 Give this a stir to mix the salt an soda around with the flour.

In a mixing bowl combine at medium speed (for about 30 seconds) the following:

1/4 cup peanut butter

1/3 cup sour cream

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup sugar

Add:

2 eggs, one at a time

3 mashed bananas

Add:

The flour mixture that you have set aside, mixing just until moist.  Fold in:

1 cup peanut butter chips (I like to throw in white or chocolate chips sometimes)

Spoon equal amounts into your prepared pans and top with a sprinkling of additional chips and 1 Tablespoon of brown sugar.

Bake for about one hour, or until a test pick comes out fairly clean.  Cool for about 15 minutes before removing easily from the pans (since you have prepared them so well)

NOTE:  at about 40 minutes if I think the tops of my bread are browning too fast I will slip a piece of foil over the top to prevent too much browning.  And, as you can see from the photo I also like to dollop some peanut butter on top just to complete the banana/peanut butter flavor.