Banana Split Bread

   

 I have a long history with buses.

And bus drivers.

I remember in kindergarten we had a bus driver named . . . Allen maybe? I don't remember his name that well, maybe it was Steve, but he was sort of skinny and old and looks like the guidance counselor at my new school (BTW, my counselor is a hippie, more on that later!)

I was super confused about the buses back then, I thought riding the bus was a one time thing and my mom would pick me up every other time.

So then one day I was left behind at school because my bus left without me getting on. So then my mom showed up really late.

And then there was the bus driver Paul. He was heavier, old, had a big red nose and had thin white hair. The way we knew which bus to get on was the order they were in. Mine was always the third one. Then one day, my bus moved to second. Me and two of my friends got on the wrong bus and started freaking out when we realized that we were with, gasp, the Tendoy kids!

And then there was that one nice old guy who's friend named Kenievel died in a motorcycle accident.

And then the triplet bus drivers. This one was kind of hilarious. See there were these triplets, named Michael, Steve, and something else. The first two grew up to be bus-drivers, and the other one did something else. Steve was our bus driver. Then he went away and we got someone else. Then one day  . . . . Steve's back, Steve's back!!!

But, this guy insisted he wasn't Steve. He was actually his triplet/twin brother. He had to pull out his driver's license to prove it to us, because this guy looked EXACTLY like Steve. His name was Michael, and it turned out that Steve was busy that day and it was just a lucky coincidence that Michael was there. When we were stopped at a red light (I still remember, it was by the Pawn Shop with the fake horse and Violet's Hair Studio) there was a blue car in front of us. It was Steve talking on the phone!

Michael reassured us that this was definitely Steve and we all started yelling and waving and freaking out and it was awesome.

There were a lot more bus drivers after that, Derek, Santa Claus, Shalyse's mom, Carol with the red hair, and so  many more.

But those are for another day. This doesn't really have anything to do with banana bread, but this banana bread is really really good.

It's loaded with all the toppings of a banana split, chocolate chips, cherries, pineapples, strawberry jam, and nuts. You can actually put a couple tablespoons of melted ice cream in there if you have some hanging out in the freezer.

This bread is SO good! It's soft, moist and tender, loaded with chunks of banana split stuff, and was easy to make too!

I used my favorite banana bread base, but feel free to use another.

Banana Split Bread
Soft, tender, moist banana bread with all the fixings of a banana split
5 stars *****

Serves:                                 Prep Time:       Bake Time:           Total Time:
2 small loaves or 1 big one    12 min.              35 min.                 47 min.    

Ingredients:

• 1 box of yellow cake mix
• 2 eggs
• 4 bananas
• 1/3 cup nuts
• 1/4 cup strawberry jam
• 3/4 cup cherries
• 1 cup milk chocolate chips
• 1/3 cup pineapple tidbits

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Grease 2 small loaf pans or 1 large loaf pan.
2. Smash bananas in a large bowl (I just mixed them in my KitchenAid) then add cake mix and eggs, then mix well.
3. Fold in the nuts, cherries, pineapple, chocolate chips. Pour batter into the pan. Drop spoonfuls of strawberry jam on top. Drag a knife across in different directions to create swirls.
4. Fill the pans with batter about half or 2/3 full. 
5. Bake for 35-40 minutes, maybe longer if you have a large loaf pan. 

Notes:
*you can use 4 small/medium bananas or 3 large ones
*the less you mix the softer your bread will be, so just have that in mind. 
*I just mixed the bananas in my KitchenAid then added everything else

This was actually the first recipe I shared on my old blog, so that's why the pictures are horizontal, and the above picture has horrible lighting!

I really like the texture of this bread, tender and moist with an occasional crunch. I'm actually not a big fan of nuts in my bread, but I really liked this. It depends on what nuts you use, I used peanuts and really liked the flavor it added.

I knew that banana splits have strawberry sauce, and I wanted to incorporate that, but mixing it in the bread would affect the flavor and create weird colors. So I swirled strawberry jam in on the top.

This bread is really yummy, my whole family loved it, and is easy too! Give this one a try, it's worth it!


Linking at: Linky Party Palooza, Look What I made