The Dish:
What happens when two best friends, banana bread and coffee cake, invite blueberries to the party!
The Tell:
There are many weekend mornings when I look forward to using up my ripe bananas to make a tried and true banana bread to serve warm out of the oven while we slow roll into the day. My go-to recipe is from an old family friend I included in “Dish and Tell: Recipes from the Heart” because everybody needs a good banana bread recipe!
Janet’s beloved banana bread recipe (and now mine too) comes from a church cookbook. She knew the family that submitted it, so she trusted it would be good—and isn’t that how the best recipes find their way to us? Whether endorsed by someone we know in real life or a recommendation from a friend or loved one, the recipes passed on to others and shared are the very best recipes!
That’s how I came to learn about banana breakfast coffee cake, a recipe that made me question my loyalty to my standby banana bread whenever I had a bowl of black, ripe bananas on the counter
The coffee cake was enthusiastically endorsed by my late dad in one of his many emails to me, where he would gush about my mom’s cooking and baking. He sent me a picture of the recipe that appears to be a clipping from a magazine, probably Taste of Home, which was a source of so many of my mom’s best recipes!
The “cake” caught my attention as it is made in a 9 x 9-inch square pan and topped with a streusel layer of brown sugar, flour, butter, and walnuts. This added level of sweet decadence had me smitten…I also couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if I folded in some blueberries I had on hand. (Spoiler alert: it was the right call!)
I picked up this intel from my friend Sarah, who has an amazing recipe for pumpkin bread (also in “Dish and Tell: Recipes from Heart” 😉) where she folds in blueberries for an added burst of flavor. I thought if this “berry” good addition worked for pumpkin bread, it would surely work with a banana coffee cake combo.
It’s the kind of recipe that feels both familiar and just a little special—perfect for slow mornings and a hot cup of coffee! I’ve found that making it now feels like a small way to stay connected to my dad—bringing that same recipe into my own kitchen, just as he shared it with me.
