A Tale of Two Banana Nut Breads

I'm an absolutely horrible blogger, the posts coming in fits and spells.  I'd thought about doing a histiocytosis awareness post back in September when it was Histiocytosis Awareness Month.  I thought about doing another dental visit post similar to the last one.  I also thought about doing a combined post, championing histio awareness and dentistry, considering most of us adults with the disease (even in remission) seem to have a host of dental difficulties.  A recipe post on the fresh apple cake was almost written but, at the last moment, it was decided that posting it straight to the notes in FB would be a lot easier. I'd even considered writing a post on how I've gotten over food, previously my best friend, and lost 60 pounds this spring/summer/fall.   Days and weeks came and went.  Words didn't gel together.  Those five posts didn't get written.

And so it goes.  There's nothing much to tell these days, no amusing stories coming forth from Mama, no misadventures beyond taking a wrong interstate and driving completely around Birmingham, Alabama.

And it isn't that there's less free time to be a better blogger.  Free time exists.  Life gets complicated; minds get tired of thinking.  At the end of the day, I'd rather open a book and disappear into it than think another thought. Unless the book is thought provoking.  I like thought-provoking books...

Annnnyways.  I'm using a lot of words to apologize for not keeping to my own set standard of a post a week (on average).  I'll try to do better.  I will.

To kick off getting on the proverbial bandwagon, I've two recipes for Banana Nut Bread.  TWO.  Both of them start with a cake mix.  I'd been to the Pig earlier in the week and spotted a big bag of bananas in the reduced-for-quick-sale produce cart.  There must've been five pounds of bananas in the bag for a dollar.  A dollar!  Even after sharing half with Mama, there was still a huge bunch of bananas to do something with.

 Holidays are quickly approaching.  What better time to get a headstart on holiday baking?  Banana nut bread freezes very well, you know...

Except there were other cakes to be made and icing to be whipped and cardboard to be cut and covered.  I needed a recipe that wouldn't require a lot of preparation.  I googled recipes for banana nut breads and combined a couple of them to come up with two very tasty, quick and easy recipes beginning with butter cake mixes:  Pumpkin Spice Pudding Banana Nut Bread aka The One with Pudding In It, and Cream Cheese Banana Nut Bread.  I didn't photograph for tutorials;  just the ingredients and finished breads.

So, without another moment's procrastination, here are the ingredients for
Pumpkin Spice Banana Nut Bread

One butter golden cake mix
Four eggs
One half cup oil
Two to three bananas - mashed
Three fourths cup of buttermilk
One box of Jello brand instant pumpkin spice pudding mix
One teaspoon vanilla
One cup nuts

Despite all the directions to combine all the wet ingredients first and then add all the dry ingredients, I absolutely dumped everything but the pecans together in the KitchenAid bowl and let it do the work all at once.  Life is easier if you plow around the stumps.  It worked a charm.  Try, yourself, and see if it doesn't.  Stir in the pecans when it's all mixed well.

Pour into two greased and floured loaf pans or a small bundt pan.

Bake at 350 for an hour or so until it's done.
                                     

Maybe I should've rechopped Mama's chopped pecans.

Cream Cheese Banana Nut Bread

Five bananas - smashed

Three eggs

One butter cake mix

Eight ounces cream cheese - room temperature

One tablespoon vanilla

One cup chopped pecans

Seriously.  Just dump everything together and mix well, stirring in the pecans before pouring into two greased and floured loaf pans.

These are larger sized loaf pans 8 x 4 x 2 1/2.  If you've smaller

loaf pans, best to grease and flour one more.

Bake at 350 and hour or so until done.

At the point this was photographed, I was already well

into an insulin response over having consumed a slice of the

first banana nut bread.  It's a fuzzy photo.  My body was

feeling fuzzy and warm, too!

Both recipes yield a less bread-like i.e. dense loaf of tasty bread.  The pudding recipe, with oil in it, not to mention buttermilk, definitely is the moister of the two.  And the flavor the pumpkin spice pudding gives it is out of this world.  BUT, the cream cheese and banana-ness of the second recipe???  It's difficult to decide which recipe is the better one.

I've only found pumpkin spice pudding at WalMart.  Other food bloggers had been ranting and raving over it and I had to have it also.  It's worth tracking down, but you can use whatever pudding tickles your taste buds.  The original recipe had, of all things, instant banana pudding in it!

There.  It's a two-fer:  Two recipes for banana nut bread in one blog post after a month's slacking...

Y'all enjoy!