William's Sonoma Sour Cream Blueberry Bread

I bought the William's Sonoma Baking Book a few months ago, hypnotized by its cozy-looking cover and its extensive assortment of recipes. It has everything from delicate cookies to rustic breads. I've made a few items so far, but this sour cream blueberry bread is my favourite. It's light and flavourful, and keeps really well. I suspect it's quite versatile, too. I stuck pretty close to the recipe, not even substituting some AP flour for whole wheat like I usually do, but I did use yogurt instead of sour cream, because I had it on hand, and that other issue.

This bread also gets points for using up some of the bananas I have in my freezer! This must be a selling point to someone else out there-- I can't be the only one whose freezer is 90% bananas.

Sour Cream Blueberry Bread
from Williams Sonoma

Ingredients:

• 2 medium-ripe bananas
• 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans (as usual, I left these out)
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 8 Tbs. (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted, plus
    extra for greasing
• 1 heaping cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Directions:

Preheat an oven to 350°F. Grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan.

Mash the bananas well with a fork or coarsely puree them in a food processor. Measure out 1 cup and set aside.

In a bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and pecans. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, sour cream, vanilla, butter and the 1 cup mashed banana pulp. Make a well in the flour mixture and pour in the banana mixture. Stir together just until combined. The batter should be slightly lumpy. Gently fold in the blueberries, taking care not to break them up. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake until the top of the bread is firm to the touch and a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean, 50 to 60 minutes. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool for 30 minutes. Turn the loaf out onto the rack and let cool completely. Makes one 9-by-5-inch loaf.