Sorry for the long absence, life seems to get crazy in the spring. We just got done with the kids spring break, it seemed a lot longer to me than the kids somehow, haha. The weather has been a little moody, sunshine and almost 70 one day and then 50's and rain the next. I shouldn't complain about that too much, I just heard that the other side of the country got dumped with more snow?!?!? With the start of spring that means the start of kids sports and projects. My husband and I have recently opened up a Military Surplus/Reloading components online store (www.BadgerBrass.com). Every minute of free time lately has been getting this little business setup. I will admit, I have been enjoying doing this with my husband (as I do love doing projects together), it's given us more time doing stuff together than we would normally have. With all this going on, I haven't really had a whole lot of time to bake anything :( , UNTIL last weekend when I looked in the freezer and saw we had an entire shelf full of frozen over ripe bananas. What's a girl to do, but make banana bread. I took it a step further.... I not only made cinnamon swirl banana bread, but I then made cinnamon swirl banana bread french toast. It was a complete success, I'm so happy I thought of doing that. I felt bad depriving my poor family of any baked goods for the last month. The only thing I think I want to do differently next time (and I would have if I had, had more time last Saturday morning) is make some bananas foster to top it off with.
**NOTE these are not the healthiest thing in the world and it would also be very easy to make these vegan, if you would like to know the substitutions feel free to post a comment with your email or send me a message on my Facebook page**
Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread
For the Bread:
3 Over-rip bananas smashed
1/3 Cup melted butter
3/4 Cup sugar
1 Egg beaten
1 Tsp Vanilla
1 Tsp Baking soda
Dash of salt
1 1/2 Cups flour
For the swirl:
1/3 Cup Brown sugar
1 Tbs Cinnamon
1/2 Tsp Salt (optional, I feel that anytime you make a cinnamon/sugar combo, salt should always be added to enhance those flavors)
1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease up a loaf pan and sprinkle flour on top of that to help it not stick.
2. Take mashed bananas, butter, sugar, beaten egg, and vanilla and combine with an electric mixer (if you don't have one you can always do this by hand and call it your arms workout for the day ;) ). Once it looks just mixed add the baking soda and salt. Mix on low till just incorporated, and start slowly adding the flower. Try not to over-mix.
3. In a small bowl mix together the brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt.
4. Add half the batter to the loaf pan, then you want to sprinkle 1/2 of the cinnamon mix evenly over it. Add the rest of the batter and top it off with the rest of the cinnamon mixture.
5. Bake for 50-60 minutes (always keep a watchful eye on it towards the end don't want it to burn or pull it out too soon).
Now for the fun part, making the french toast part. Make sure that the bread has cooled down a little bit, try to achieve room temperature if you can. Now I do most of this just by sight so I'm going to try my hardest to give it a measurement.
French Toast
1 to 1 1/2 Cups Milk (depends on the amount of french toast you are making)
1 Egg
1 Tbs Cinnamon (more if you reallllly enjoy cinnamon)
1/4 Cup Brown sugar
1 Tsp Vanilla
1. In a small bowl start with the milk followed by the egg. Beat the eggs and milk for a minute. Add the cinnamon, sugar, and vanilla and beat some more for about another minute.
2. Heat up a skillet on med to med high (depending on how hot it gets...you know it best). Take a little bit of butter and put it on the spots where you plan to lay your french toast, move it around a little with your spatula.
3. Take a piece of your banana bread and dip it in the batter on one side and then the the other, and then set it down on the skillet. Do this for the remaining bread and flip once they start to get a little golden (sometimes especially with banana bread it's hard to see the color change so you can also feel the bread with fast touches so you don't burn yourself. When it feels dry and not gooey or damp anymore, then it's good to flip).
Now plate your cinnamon swirl banana bread french toast and enjoy the melted cinnamon goodness on top. Due to the nature of banana bread being so sweet, I topped my families with a little butter to salt it up some.
I hope ya'll enjoy this!!!! Have a very blessed Easter Sunday!!!!
