Homestead Banana Bread

I can never have too many varieties of Banana Bread in my life and so today, I’m bringing you another recipe for another one of my favorites: Homestead Banana Bread. This Banana Bread is one of the most tender crumbed and flavorful ones you’ll find, thanks to the incorporation of an entire brick of cream cheese within the batter itself. It steps further into bliss with the deliciously wonderful topping of seasonal spices and toasted pecans. No matter how recently you’ve made banana bread, Homestead Banana Bread is calling your name! I encourage you to print out the recipe today and keep it close at hand for the next time the baking bug bites ya. If you’d like the recipe, scroll right down to the next photo or to the bottom for the printable recipe card. If you’ve a mind to visit a bit today, keep reading. 

I have this little book of random questions, journaling prompts that I use when I need a little inspiration about what to write about. I’m big on keeping a journal. I think most adults need this but, in absence of it, they use facebook to record thoughts and feelings that are best sorted out in a journal. That’s how you end up with the culture we have today😳and that culture is what keeps me motivated to write a journal!

Today’s journal question was “What is the life you’d have it nothing stood in your way?”. My brain immediately brought this life to mind, clear as a bell. Away from the world, on a wooded mountain, with a cabin, and trees, and peace. My family, my Bibles, my notebooks, and my pens. Rocking chair on the porch and time outside going for walks to gather my thoughts and returning to that rocking chair to write them out. In between this I’d be in the kitchen cooking up heartwarming meals and after that I’d be back on that porch, sitting beside Ricky with cups of coffee, growing our wisdom together. 

But the thing about scenarios like that is that we will never have an ideal scenario. Unfortunately, without even realizing it, many of us take an “ideal or nothing” approach to enjoying our lives. This is a tragic way to live.

There is a photography term known as the bokeh effect. The result of this effect is that a portion of the photo is in tight focus and the rest of the picture is blurred. All you see is what you are focused on. Sadly, I think a lot of our lives end up lost in the blur when we focus on the hope for perfection. But if we adjust our focus, pull out of the shot a bit, and look at the whole picture we are generally surprised by how much beauty is in the scene that may have been entirely overlooked. 

And so rather than waiting for the perfect future that my brain conjures up- I widen my focus, realizing that this very day, where I am right now, I can grab my Bibles and notebooks and pens an walk out onto my back porch, look up and pine trees and process my thoughts. The only thing keeping us from living our dreams on most days is a realization of how much of that dream for the future already exists in the blessings of the present. 

To make this, you’ll need: butter, cream cheese, sugar, eggs, self rising flour, bananas, chopped pecans, vanilla, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves. 

Now, unlike my cream cheese filled banana bread with a ribbon of cream cheese inside it, this cream cheese is going to become part of our batter. By incorporating it into the batter, we’ll end up with a much more tender and flavorful banana bread. 

Note: It is incredibly important that your cream cheese and butter be at room temp so they will blend in well. I usually just sit them on the counter at night before going to bed and make Homestead Banana Bread in the morning. 

For the topping you’ll also need brown sugar, more butter, and a wee bit of flour (all purpose or plain is fine). Go ahead and stir these together until they look like this: 

Set that aside and we’ll use it in a minute. Now, let’s make our batter.

Place butter and cream cheese in mixing bowl and beat with electric mixer until well blended and fluffy. Add eggs and sugar and beat again until mixed. Add in flour, bananas, 1 cup of chopped pecans, and spices. Mix until fully incorporated. Bananas will still have some chunks and batter will be thick.

Spray two loaf pans liberally with baking spray. Divide Homestead Banana Bread batter evenly among loaf pans.

Sprinkle the topping over the batter in each pan.

Sprinkle with remaining pecans.

Bake 350 at one hour, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, covering with foil after 30 minutes to prevent pecans from burning.

Oh mercy! This is even more delicious than it looks.

 

I hope you get to make this soon. Make sure you print out the recipe to have on hand!

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