Rum Glazed Blueberry Banana Bread

OK, Dollar Tree. Frozen food section. I can't help it. While I am all about local, slow food...the deals in the Dollar Tree frozen food section are amazing. I have been keeping stocked with 2 cup packages of frozen blueberries and peaches. The frozen broccoli is some of the best I've ever had. It is probably horribly laden with something I don't want to know about. But...in these times and money tightness...I am NOT going to pass up ready to use good frozen fruit like that, since fruit desserts are some of my favorites!

We had a half bunch of mini bananas about to just go completely black...so...I started thinking banana bread. Naturally. Then I thought...Blueberries, why not! (I started searching for recipes and found this one for Best Banana Bread on another bloggers site. Go figure she suggested blueberries as a stir in as well. I made few changes, added some rum, floured the fruits) And...Rum Glazed Blueberry Banana Bread.



Rum Glazed Blueberry Banana Bread

2 medium bananas, the riper the better
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 ¾ cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
½ cup vegetable oil
1/8 cup milk or buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
1 Tbls rum or rum extract
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease and flour your loaf pan. (Doesn’t Bakers Joy rock?)

Peel and mash the bananas with a fork in your mixing bowl. Mash them well, until they are shiny. Don’t worry about getting them completely smooth. (Don’t use a mixer at all for this recipe!) Add the eggs and whisk with the fork. Add the sugar and whisk for a few minutes until starting to thicken a bit and the sugar is dissolved.

Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl. Measure the oil, milk, vanilla and rum into another bowl or measuring cup.

Mix dry and wet ingredients into banana and eggs. Start and end with dry.

If using frozen, rinse blueberries WELL until the water is running as clear as it is going to get. If fresh, just rinse. Shake berries to dry them and sprinkle with a little extra flour. Pour flour coated blueberries into batter. GENTLY fold in until evenly distributed, bring your spatula down the side and up through the center, turn the bowl and repeat. You only want to do this a few times to evenly distribute the berries. Too much and you will turn the batter blue!

Pour batter into prepared loaf pan. Tap sharply on counter a few times to get out any air bubbles and level batter. Bake at 325 for 60 to 70 minutes. When done, top should be cracked and feel set when pressed, or a toothpick comes out clean. You want this JUST cooked and still moist.

Let rest from oven 10 minutes and run a knife around the edges of the pan. Turn out onto cooling rack.

Glaze this with some rum glaze if you like, or just butter and eat it.


Rum Glaze

¼ cup butter
¾ cup sugar
3 Tbls Water
3 Tbls Rum
Mix all in sauce pan and bring to boil. Boil three minutes stirring constantly. Watch for boil over right after it first comes to boil. Pour over banana bread.