Best Banana Bread (Secret Ingredient!)

While produce is very hard to afford during the college years, bananas seem to be bountiful.  The cafeteria has no problem with you taking a banana to go and if this is practiced by everyone in your dorm, they accumulate quickly.  Instant oatmeal packets are also everywhere in the dorm kitchen, usually sent by parents in hopes that their children are making "healthy choices." 


I decided to work with what I had.  So I took the overripe bananas and abandoned oatmeal packet and created well... magic banana bread. This bread came out of the machine (thank you to my field hockey coach Marty) and was piping hot, with steam rising from its glistening crust.  Even though it could literally burn a tongue, my dorm mates flocked around it like vultures at a carcass. Honestly, it was late and I didn't think I was hungry to even try it. I ate two pieces. 


It is the moistest banana bread I have ever tasted, thanks to the sour cream.  I wanted to label it "Super Moist Banana Bread" but several of my friends hate the word moist, so keeping it in my I just said best.  But it is both the best and super moist.  Plus it is pretty cheap to make, especially when the bananas are free :)


Best Banana Bread
Yield: 1 loaf
Cost: $$$$$
Time: 1.5 hours

• 1 2/3 cup flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup melted butter room temperature
• 2 eggs room temperature
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 3 overripe bananas mashed
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 packet Cinnamon Spice Quaker Oats Instant Oatmeal (notso SECRET INGREDIENT)

For an Oven:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, grease loaf pan
2. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, and oatmeal packet in a bowl
3. In another bowl, beat eggs and sugar together until light yellow and fluffy
4. Add honey, vanilla extract, butter, sour cream and bananas
5. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just homogenous, do not over mix or your bread will be dense!!
6. Add ingredients to the loaf pan and back for one hour

For a Breadmaker:

1. Follow instructions under quick bread, layer ingredients as appropriate. Mine took 1 hour and 40 minutes