How to Elevate Your Banana Bread with Strawberries: A Delicious Twist!

This perfect banana bread has a strong banana flavor and a caramel-brown crust with a surprise of strawberries.

Strawberry Banana Bread

Ingredients

1. 3 Ripe Bananas

2. 1/2 cup Butter

3. 2 Large Beaten Eggs

4. 2 cups Flour

5. 1 cup Sugar

6. 1 teaspoon Baking Powder

7. 1/2 teaspoon Salt

8. 1 1/2 cups Fresh Strawberries, sliced

9. 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees

2. In a large bowl, mix butter into the mashed bananas.

3. Mix in the sugar, egg and vanilla.

4. Sprinkle in the baking powder and salt over the mixture and mix in.

5. Add the flour last, sift or stir it in slowly. Do not overmix. The lumps will work themselves out.

6. Fold the strawberries into the batter.

7. Add parchment paper to the bottom of a 4x8" loaf pan. You can also butter the bottom. Pour the batter into pan and bake for 1 hour.

(I use parchment paper because #1. It doesn't burn while baking AND #2. The cleanup is much more manageable. Shown in photo below)

Banana bread can't get any better than this. I've never added additional fruit but I had some strawberries going bad along with the bananas. So, I figured why not.

 It's the kind of bread that you can enjoy for breakfast AND dessert! It must have some sort of super powers to be breakfast AND dessert. Well, it does actually.. The main purpose of preparing banana bread is to utilize an overripe banana, which has certain health benefits. The chemistry of a cooked banana reduces the chances of cough and cold as compared to the raw banana. That's kind of a big deal.

Let's face it, banana pairs well with any other fruit. So, why not throw in some extra flavors and added health benefits? I had strawberries left over from my Strawberry Yogurt Pie and they were starting to turn. It worked out perfectly for this recipe! 

#1 Rule in Banana Bread making of any kind is the bananas MUST be turning. Meaning overripe. When you start seeing the banana getting darks spots, It's TIME for some delicious bread!

Did you know?

Bananas appeared in the US in the 1870s and it took a while for them to appear as ingredient items for desserts. Banana bread first became a standard feature of American cookbooks with the popularization of baking soda and baking powder in the 1930's.