Banana Bread

I have always loved bananas, which is probably why it was pretty hard to keep away from bananas for the entire time I was pregnant (according to Chinese superstitions, pregnant women should not eat bananas). This has consequently led me to endulge in basically anything with bananas since Jory's birth.

I adapted this recipe from a chinese cookbook that my mom has had for as long as I can remember. The ironic thing is that when rifling through my mother in law's cookbooks, I found that she had the exact same set as my mom. Apparently, this woman's (Maria Lee) cookbooks were very popular at that time. Her recipe is different in that she includes walnuts (1/2 cup walnuts added at the same time as the vanilla essence, in case you would like to include this ingredient). I also added the banana decoration on top.

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups Flour
1/2 tsp. Baking Soda
2 tsp. Baking Powder
2 1/2 Bananas
3/4 cup Sugar
4 Eggs
1/2 cup Butter
1 tsp. Vanilla Essence

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350 F.

With an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until milky white. Separate egg yolks from egg whites, adding egg yolks to butter mixture and separating egg whites into a separate bowl.

Sift together flour, baking soda and baking powder.

In a small bowl, mash 2 bananas with a fork. Add to butter mixture alternately with flour mixture, then add vanilla essence and blend well.

Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold egg whites into the batter delicately until combined.

Line bread pan with wax paper (or grease pan), then pour batter into the pan. Slice the 1/2 of the banana and decorate the top of the loaf.

Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour.