Strawberry Banana Bread

Let's continue the last of the summer berries recipe month with a great quick bread. My boyfriend can tell you that I have a tendency to buy bananas and forget to eat them all before they start speckling and then I just use the excuse that I wanted to make banana bread even though I really just forgot we had bananas. I really should start putting them in a more noticeable location in the kitchen. I didn't want to make my normal banana bread since I have been forgetting about my bananas a lot lately... so I looked around in the fridge and we had some fresh strawberries and I thought strawberries, bananas, of course those flavors go together!

I normally put plain Greek yogurt in my banana bread as well but this week, we didn't have anymore of the plain yogurt, but guess what?! We had strawberry Greek yogurt!

Strawberry Banana Bread, adapted from America's Test Kitchen

2 cups flour

¾ cup sugar

¾ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt
1½ cups very ripe mashed bananas (approx. 3 bananas)
6 tbsp butter, melted
2 large eggs

¼ cup strawberry Greek yogurt
1 tsp vanilla

½ cup walnuts, toasted and chopped coarse

¾ cup diced strawberries

Directions:
(1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8 inch loaf pan.

(2) Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. In another bowl, whisk the mashed bananas, melted butter, eggs, yogurt and vanilla.

(3) Gently, fold the banana mixture into the flour mixture until almost combined. Add the diced strawberries and toasted walnuts and fold in very gently being sure not to over mix! The batter will appear thick and chunky. Resist the urge to continue mixing.

(4) Pour the batter into the greased loaf pan and bake for approximately one hour or until bread is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the loaf comes out clean.

(5) Let the bread cool for 15 minutes and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

I think the addition of the strawberries actually made the bread MORE moist!!! Can you believe it?! I mean really really moist! If you like banana bread then I think this would be a great addition if you want to mix it up a little, and just think of the possibilities with different flavored yogurts and other fruits that you can use.

Happy Baking! and I guess time for the fall baking to begin.....