CLEVELAND, Oh — Don’t throw out those ripe bananas when it is so simple to make a loaf of banana bread. Yvonne Pointer is a well known community activist in Northeast Ohio, but she is also well known for her baking skills.

Fox 8’s Stefani Schaefer was put to work peeling bananas, while Yvonne shared her favorite Banana Bread recipe.

Banana Bread
Recipe courtesy of Gold Medal Flour

1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed very ripe bananas (3 to 4 medium)
1/2 cups buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups Gold Medal all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped nuts, if desired

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottoms only of 2 (8×4-inch) loaf pans or 1(9×5-inch) loaf pan.
2. In large bowl, mix sugar and butter. Add eggs, bananas, buttermilk and vanilla; beat with electric mixer
on medium speed until smooth. Stir in flour, baking soad, salt and nuts just until moistened. Pour batter into pans.
3. Bake 8-inch loaves 1 hour, 9-inch loaf 1 1/4 hours, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Cool 10 minutes. Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans to cooling rack. Cool about 1 hour before slicing.
2 loaves (16 slices each)