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Recipes

Recipe: Banana Bread

Last week, Becky Means shared her mom's recipe for banana bread. This week, we try something different.

Anne Byrn, better known as the Cake Mix Doctor, has been helping people turn box cake mix into homemade goodies for over ten years. She has almost a cult following, with roughly 3 million cookbooks sold and multiple television appearances including Good Morning America. Today, when time is nonexistent and food needs to be fast, the Cake Mix Doctor lends a helping hand to those people who want to do more than just run by a bakery on the way to a party.

Normally, we stick with our from-scratch, family recipe for banana bread, but we were intrigued by the Cake Mix Doctor's secret to "box mix" banana bread. The first time we made it, we followed the recipe exactly and found it to be super-sweet. Then we made it a second time with a few tweaks, and it was delicious. Fair warning - this recipe is more of a banana cake than banana bread, but without the icing.

Banana Bread

  • 1 box plain yellow cake mix (We used Duncan Hines.)
  • 2 very ripe bananas, mashed
  • ¾ cup buttermilk
  • ¼ cup brown sugar
  • ½ cup canola oil (vegetable or corn oil can be used)
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 2 teaspoons nutmeg
  • 3 large eggs
  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9x13-inch Pyrex. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl with an electric mixer on low for one minute. Scrap the sides of the bowl, and mix on medium speed for two minutes. Pour into the pan and bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before serving.

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