Tea Room Recipe #11 - Peach Tree Tea Room (Fredericksburg, Texas)

A banana bread recipe made with apricots? Why not!

I found this fun variation on a classic tea bread in "The Peach Tree Tea Room Cookbook" by Cynthia Collins Pedregon of Fredericksburg, Texas. While the tea room is still in business (go here for photos), I was saddened to learn that Cynthia herself passed away last year. Odd how I never even knew this dear lady, yet knowing she was a tea room owner, and reading her very family-oriented cookbook, makes me sad I never got to meet her! If you'd like to "meet" her in the pages of this cookbook, copies of it are easy to find online. The book was written in 1990, but by the time I got a copy it was a 2005 edition and in its ninth printing. And there were already some 59,500 copies in print, which tells me this is a mighty popular cookbook! And after reading it I can see why. It contains lots of Texas-style family favorites as well as classic tea room fare (quiches, tea breads), and I can see this is a cookbook I'll be reaching for often. This week, I made the Banana Apricot Nut Bread and thought it was a fun new way to enjoy banana bread!

Banana Apricot Nut Bread

1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup plain flour
1 cup whole wheat flour (I used King Arthur's white whole wheat flour)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1-1/2 cups mashed bananas (about three large)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (I used walnuts)
1 cup minced dried apricots

Using electric mixer, cream butter and sugars. Add eggs and beat well. In separate bowl combine the flours, salt and soda. Stir into the creamed mixture alternately with the mashed bananas. Batter will be very thick. Stir in nuts and apricots. Pour into loaf pan prepared with cooking spray (I also line mine with parchment paper) and let stand at room temperature for 20 minutes. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Yields 1 loaf of bread.