Banana Bread and a Perfect Picnic Day

I’ve had this recipe on my “to try” list for a long time now.  Since yesterday was a nice sunny day we decided to go out for a BBQ picnic with our friends. So I thought banana bread would be the perfect dessert for a picnic. Everyone loved it so I’m sure banana bread will be on our picnic menu from now on :).  I want to send my special thanks to hubby’s colleague, Wilma, for sharing this great Banana Bread recipe.

Time: 60 min, Prep:  15 min.  Cook: 45
Servings: 1 loaf      

Ingredients:

• 115 g sugar (½ cup)
• 2 eggs
• 120 ml Crisco oil (2/3 cup)
• 170 g flour (1 ½ cups)
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda (I didn’t have this so I just added another ½ tsp baking powder)
• 2 (overripe) medium bananas
• 50-80 g chocolate chips (optional)

I doubled the quantity to make two banana breads, one plain and the other one with chocolate chips (special request from hubby).

Directions:

Mash bananas well in a small bowl and set aside.

Mix the sugar and eggs with a blender.  Add oil and mix again – the mixture should look like and have the consistency of lemon pudding.

Add the flour, baking powder and baking soda; mix well.  Since the mixture was too thick and I couldn’t mix it using a blender anymore, I transferred everything to a bowl and continued mixing with an electric hand mixer on low.

Lastly, add the bananas and mix well again.

You can also add the chocolate chips if you want. Then, pour batter into a well oiled loaf pan.  Let stand for 10-15 minutes and then bake for 45 minutes on 180°C (350°F).

And some more pictures from our BBQ Picnic…

We had chicken breast, hot dogs, burgers, and the very popular Romanian mici (grilled minced-meat rolls) that are missing from this picture. Virgil, thanks for being our chef, great food as always!!!

Trying to warm up and show my gymnastics skills… Nadia, please don’t give me an “F” on this 🙂

Playing Frisbee, the classic outdoor game for a picnic!

Enjoying the great BBQ and good company.