Banana Bread No. 2

Sorry if this seems to be a banana bread and chocolate themed blog. Or, as you'll read below, a banana bread, chocolate and alcohol themed blog. I promise that is not intentional. I just had 3 brown, horribly neglected bananas sitting on top of my microwave, and a dear friend's birthday party to go to, so something had to be done. Thus, Banana Bread No. 2 happened.

I will say this- it's a much, much better banana bread. It has more of a kick to it, in a good, not too overwhelming way. This is yet another recipe from Deb at Smitten Kitchen, and the original post can be found here: http://smittenkitchen.com/2006/11/speckled-for-the-freckled/

A few notes before I leave you with the recipe-
1. I used a very smooth Canadian whiskey, not bourbon, which probably took away from the "punch" in the bread.
2. I leaned on the heavier side with the brown sugar because in my mind birthdays = things on the sweeter side.
3. The frosting was very spur of the moment, so I cannot make any promises that a sane person would come up with it. Inspiration came from this recipe: http://www.cupcakeproject.com/2009/05/greek-yogurt-frosting-healthy-frosting.html.

Now for the recipe:

Banana Bread

3 to 4 ripe bananas, smashed
1/3 cup melted salted butter
3/4 to 1 cup light brown sugar (depending on the level of sweetness you prefer, I always use the smaller amount)
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon bourbon (optional)
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
Pinch of ground cloves
1 1/2 cup of flour

Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease a 4x8" loaf pan.

With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, vanilla and bourbon, then the spices. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into pan. Bake for 50 minutes to one hour, or until a tester comes out clean. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan. Personally, the bread took over on hour to bake, and after over 60 minutes uncovered in the oven, I had to resort to wrapping the loaf in foil to keep the top from getting too crunchy, and put it back in for another 10 minutes. Such is baking with Hell, the cake-hating oven.

Baked Bread

Frosting- be warned that I just threw this together, and do not have specific measurements
1 part non-fat Greek yogurt
1 part Nutella
~1 tablespoon whiskey

Chilled Frosting

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and chill. The whiskey should balance out the tartness of the yogurt and the sweetness of the nutella. Spread this over the bread.

Finished Product