Banana Nut Bread

Adapted from The Green Thumb Harvest by Johanna and Patricia Halsey

Contributed by Marcy Olive, who said that her great-grandmother won first prize with it at the Wabash, Indiana, County Fair in 1889. 

Makes 2 loaves

1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
½ cup milk
1 cup sweet butter, softened
2½ cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 eggs, beaten
3½ cups unsifted unbleached flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
2½ cups mashed very ripe bananas
2 cups chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter 2 loaf pans.

Pour the lemon juice into the milk, and stir until the milk is curdled. These are the liquid ingredients. Set aside.

Put the flour, baking soda, and salt into a separate small bowl. Stir with a fork then sift onto a piece of aluminum foil. Bend the foil to make a "point" so you can pour these ingredients easily. These are the dry ingredients. Set aside.

Beat the butter, sugar, and vanilla until creamy in a bowl large enough to hold everything. Add the eggs, and mix thoroughly. These are the creamed ingredients.

Add the dry ingredients and the liquid ingredients alternately to the creamed ingredients. Stir in the bananas and nuts.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pans, and bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

Note: For over twelve generations, since the 1640’s, the Halsey family has lived and worked the land at a farm on the east end of Long Island, The Green Thumb, in Water Mill, New York. They now grow four hundred varieties of organic produce with the commitment to grow the best food possible for a healthier planet.