What is absolutely required:

flour
baking soda
baking powder
salt
2-3 bananas
sugar (or honey or whatever….I use maybe half a cup)
butter or vegetable oil
2 eggs

Optional stuff:

chopped up apples
cranberries
whatever nuts you find in the cupboard
buttermilk
vanilla
blueberries or any other kind of berries
chocolate chips
cinnamon
anything else that makes you happy

Any old fool will tell you that you just can’t make up baking as you go along. You have to have a formula, right? When I started making Everything but the Kitchen Sink loaves, I must have had a recipe. Now I do the unthinkable and simply wing it. Just don’t tell the baking mandarins what I’m up to. I don’t want the baking police to come and put caution tape all over the oven.

Today I used a cup of all purpose flour and a cup of whole wheat because that’s what I had. I added a teaspoon each of baking powder and baking soda and a big pinch of salt (all I had was kosher salt…it works fine). The only butter I had was in the freezer so I used vegetable oil instead (if I had soft butter, I would cream together the butter and suger but I didn’t so I didn’t). I had 2 ripe bananas + I chopped up an apple, skin and all. I also chopped up some almonds because I found some in the pantry and used a handful of chocolate chips just because. I had some buttermilk so I added a splash of that too. I also found some vanilla so I added a little splash.

So, mush up the bananas with a potato smasher. Add the oil and the sugar and beat in the eggs in individually with a fork. Add some buttermilk (I confess I didn’t measure) Add the apples. Stir it around.

Mix up the dry ingredients in another bowl with a fork. Mixers are not allowed. Add the chocolate chips and the nuts. Add the wet stuff to the dry stuff and mix it together with a spatula just until the flour is almost completely mixed in. If you see a few bits of flour here and there, that’s fine.

This is enough batter for two smaller loafs or one bigger one. I made two. I lightly grease the loaf pans before loading in the batter.

I baked my loaves for about 40 minutes at 350 F.