Special Banana Bread

We were all sitting there watching Elmo's world, and Elmo did a segment on bananas. In the video a little boy had a banana themed party. Banana bread, fried plantains, banana smoothies, banana pancakes, and banana pudding. (whew, try writing banana that many times!)

The boys thought that was really neat and asked if we could do a banana party. I don't happen to have that many bananas lying around, they eat them as fast as I could by them, but I did have some frozen ones on standby for banana bread. This seemed like a good enough time to use them.

But plain banana bread is somewhat boring. What else was nestling in the fridge just begging to be used in our banana concoction. Carrots? Sure! Maybe apples? Why not!

So I created our Special Banana Bread!

1 cup mashed bananas (about 3 medium)
1 cup white sugar
3/4 cup oil
2 eggs, beaten

Mix together in a bowl. Stir in:

2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Then add:

1 cup grated carrot
1 cup grated apple (core and peel, the peel doesn't grate very well)
1/2 cup chopped nuts, any ones you've got around. (I used half walnuts and half pecans, because I didn't have 1/2 cup walnuts. Almonds are fine too, or pine nuts. Whatever!)


Turn into 2 medium bread pans, or 1 large bread pan. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until done. The large pan will take a little while longer. In my oven it ended up being 1 hour and 15 minutes. Cool before wrapping.

When you grate the carrots, be sure to use full size. All I had were baby ones, which, while I appreciated not having to peel them, I was constantly knocking my fingers against the grater. A little painful!