There is nothing like having a slice of warm banana bread fresh out the oven, smothered in lashings of butter or cream cheese and with a cup of tea or coffee to go with it. It’s perfect for breakfast, but also is a really wonderful snack throughout the day. Heck there’s nothing stopping you from having banana bread as an after dinner dessert, either!

The magic of banana bread is not only the simplicity of the process, but also how moist and flavorful the bananas make the bread. Recipes differ on exactly how any bananas to add to the batter, but despite that we’ve never had a banana bread we didn’t like.

According to Southern Living the recipe that singer and 6-time Grammy-winner, Amy Grant, uses (handed down from her grandma) is made extra special from the addition of toasted walnuts. You can toast walnuts at home very quickly by cooking them them in an un-greased pan over medium heat for about 3 minutes (stirring often) or just until they’ve turned one shade darker than what you started with.

Many recipes call for adding in raw nuts to the recipe, but toasting them beforehand just really deepens the flavor and adds more richness to the finished result. Once the walnuts have cooled off chop them up and add them to the rest of the batter.

To make the batter first cream together the butter and sugar, then add in the eggs one at a time. Combine your dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet, the fold in sliced (not mashed) bananas and the walnuts you toasted earlier.

Bake in a 9″x5″ loaf pan in a 350˚F oven for 1 hour or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

This excellent banana bread recipe makes some of the best banana bread I’ve ever tried. If you are a fan of this bananas or walnuts then you have to try Amy Grant’s banana bread.