Banana Bread (aka Thank you, Facebook!)

I recently posed a question to my Facebook friends: How the heck do you get banana bread out of the pan without falling apart? I felt like I'd tried everything, but I still lost half of the bread to crumbs. What was I doing wrong?

I got lots of answers, the pan material, pan shape, recipe, lining of the pan or coating, etc. This week, I decided to try them all.

And guess what? It worked. Yes, the angels sang and the heavens shined upon me as this beautiful banana bread loaf slid out of the pan. Glory be.

To recap, I had been using:

•  an old Food Network Magazine recipe
• a glass pan with round corners
• butter
• waiting either really long, or really short to remove from the pan

 When I tried it this time, I used:

• Alton Brown's banana bread recipe (below)
• a metal, non-stick pan with straight sides and crisp corners
• PAM with flour
• wait exactly 10 minutes

It was just amazing, after so many wasted loafs and frustrating baking times, it worked! I'd made a beautiful bread, that didn't sink, that didn't crumble and that tasted fabulous. I was so pleased. I'll be using this recipe from here on out, for sure!

Banana Bread (Alton Brown for Food Network)

1 cup granulated sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs
3 ripe bananas
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Coat a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan with PAM and flour.

Cream the sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

In a small bowl, mash the bananas with a fork. Mix in the milk and cinnamon. In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add the banana mixture to the creamed mixture and stir until combined. Add dry ingredients, mixing just until flour disappears.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Set aside to cool on a rack for 15 minutes. Remove bread from pan, invert onto rack and cool completely before slicing.