Base banana bread recipe that's great for additions (zucchini, pumpkin, etc)

I've been tweaking several banana bread recipes over the last 6 months and have come up with a great no-fuss, repeatable recipe that also acts as an awesome base for several other additions.

Here's the base banana bread recipe:

Size: 1 loaf (9x5 pan)

• 2 cups flour
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
• 3 ripe bananas
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350'F and grease the loaf pan.

Mix flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder in one bowl and set aside.

Add butter and brown sugar to a microwave safe bowl and heat for 30 seconds or until butter melts. Mix to combine sugar and butter. Add and beat the eggs. Add the bananas and mash using a potato masher. Add the vanilla extract and chopped walnuts at this time.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet in 1/3 increments, stirring to incorporate after each dry addition.

Pour into the loaf pan and bake for 1h 15m, or until cooked through, rotating half way through.

Substitutions for Banana Zucchini Bread:

We had a huge amount of zucchinis come out of our garden this year and I was running out of things to make with them. I tried straight zucchini bread and wasn't too happy with the results so I decided to try combining the banana bread recipe with some zucchini and it turned out tasting great.

Substitutions:

• remove 1 banana from the base recipe
• add 1 medium zucchini, grated on largest sized holes, unstrained.

Add the grated zucchini after mashing the 2 bananas into the wet mixture and combine before following the rest of the base recipe. I've found that it doesn't require much more additional cooking time and the combination of the bananas and the zucchini is perfect. I put a little peanut butter on a slice and eat it after a workout.

Substitutions for Banana Pumpkin bread:

Since Fall is in the air and cans of pumpkin puree are readily available in the stores i wanted to try making a version of the base banana bread recipe with some pumpkin puree to see if I could get a really good seasonal version that would go well with an upcoming pumpkin seed roasting party.

Substitutions:

• remove 1 banana from the base recipe
• add 1 tsp of each - cinnamon, powdered ginger, nutmeg
• add 1 can of plain pumpkin puree (15oz)

Add the spices with the dry ingredients and add the pumpkin puree after mashing the bananas into the wet mixture. This bread comes out a little more moist due to the puree but I actually like it this way. It's got a great balance of sweetness and hints of pumpkin pie without being a pumpkin spice overload.

I'm not sure what else I'll try adding as a substitution to the base recipe but so far I've been extremely happy with the results of the substitutions so far.

Over the course of the summer I probably made about 8 loafs of the banana zucchini bread and I plan on making more of the pumpkin version since we've got a few more cans of puree in the cabinet.

Let me know how the bread turns out if you try it!

bon appetit