Homemade Gift Ideas: Banana Bread

With so many amazing gift guides out there for girls, guys, babies, the homemaker, the baker, the salt shaker (what!? a little rhyme happy there) we thought we’d throw in a bit of a curveball and offer up the idea of giving homemade gifts! There’s always beautiful projects you can do from Pinterest and amazing blogger ideas, but for another option or for the person who has everything, why not go bananas? Bread of course. Buh-dum-ch. (Bare with me today, it’s 2am and I’m writing this and am beyond ready for bed!)

We’ve had a banana bread recipe that’s been in our family for years that’s our go-to. Its a passed-down-by-my-grandma-who-got-it-from-her-grandma kinda thing. Here’s my favorite part: when I asked my mom recently for the recipe she text messaged me pictures of the original recipe on an index card in my grandmas handwriting.

It might just be me, but I think that’s the sweetest! Don’t worry- we’re not a cooking blog and won’t go through the whole process, but of course we snapped a few pictures of us in action. We followed the directions exactly, but added in our favorite ingredient last- chocolate chips! We’ve experimented with nuts, dried cranberries, raisins, and lots of different things, but the chips are our favorite.

We cooked ours for a little less than an hour since our pan was metal (the recipe was meant for a glass pan) and ta-da! We had our banana bread.

After that we let it cool on a rack, which is extremely important since we’re going to wrap it up. (Melted plastic doesn’t scream “Mmm eat me” on any food, but maybe that’s just me)

To wrap it, we used kitchen plastic wrap to keep it nice and fresh. Since it’s so pretty by itself, we just added a ribbon and a glittery snowflake ornament for decoration. We thought the ones we hand out would be really cute with an added tag with the recipe as well, so we made a few and you can print them if you’d like below! (Just right click and save!)

This recipe is super easy to make and everyone loves some homemade goodness. Plus, it’s perfect for when you have those last two or three over-ripe banana’s that you may just toss otherwise!

What do you think? We’d love to hear of anyone else’s homemade traditions for gifts!

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