Overripe bananas cook up excellently in any kind of hot cereal, and are lovely mashed and stirred into pancake batter. And The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook‘s Banana Crunch Muffins, loaded with butter and cream, are simply heavenly. But you can’t go wrong with a good loaf of Banana Bread. It is wonderful as breakfast or dessert with a cup of really good coffee, it makes an excellent hostess gift, and freezes well wrapped in layers of plastic wrap and aluminum foil. I like it best with a handful of chocolate chips stirred into the batter.

I’ve tried several different recipes for Banana Bread, but my sister Carla’s recipe (I think it originally came from our grandma) is my favorite. It calls for sweet cream butter instead of oil or shortening (better for your health), and comes out light and moist.

I love pulling out one of Carla’s recipes, because it’s the next best thing to having her there beside me in the kitchen. We love to cook together, but as she lives in Oklahoma and I live in Michigan, we only get the opportunity to do so once or twice a year.

Banana Bread is almost no-fail, but there is one trick for ending up with a perfect loaf: use a metal bread pan. I don’t know why, but every time I have baked quick bread in a glass pan, it gets a dry, dark, heavy crust. Baked in a metal pan, it comes out tender-crusted and moist.

Here’s my sister’s recipe, with a note on how to modify the recipe if you want to use whole wheat flour for added fiber. This makes one loaf, but can be doubled if you desire.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Pour batter into a greased metal loaf pan. Bake 45-55 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.