Banana Bread Bake off!!

Who Doesn't like Banana bread? I mean I know there are a few out there, but for the most part I think everyone likes that super moist sweet bread often studded with nuts. When I saw the bake off event up hosted by Not Quite Nigella I couldn't pass up the chance to play with some banana bread. The only problem with these events are that my mind gets going with what I can come up with to impress people or to be different. Mostly to be different. I love to play with flavors and take something simple slightly over the top. So what can I do with banana bread? Chocolate of course, but thats a typical thought, or I can do a peanut butter one..but again to me that is pretty typical, mainly because I love Peanut butter and banana's together. Fine lets get a look in the freezer where I keep my stash so its always on hand. What is left?? a ton of peanut butter chips..(how the hell did I end up with 4 bags of those???) and butterscotch chips. (crap not even chocolate chips, I need to get shopping soon ha-ha). Well what about nuts what do I have?? Hazel nuts.. don't use them!! You know that the second you do you will need them so leave those alone. Pecans..and Macacadamia nuts. So I thought what to make? Well caramel and banana's go pretty well, and butterscotch is a caramel flavor. So I decided on doing Butterscotch Macadamia nut Banana bread. I pulled out a few recipes I had to see which I thought would be best and settled on the one to tweak.

Butterscotch Macadamia Nut Banana Bread:

2 1/4 c all purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 c granulated sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
3 lrg eggs
1 1/3 c mashed ripe banana
3 tbsp sour cream
3/4 c chopped macadamia nuts
1 1/2 c butterscotch chips

Preheat oven to 350, Spray a 9x5x3 inch loaf pan with non stick pan spray. (ok I used my largest pan and I will say there was a ton of batter!! If I had them ready I would have divided the batter between 2 pans.)
Into a bowl sift together the flour, the baking powder, the baking soda and the salt. In a large bowl with an electric mixer cream the butter with the sugar, beat in the vanilla, the eggs, 1 at a time, the banana and the sour cream. Add the flour mixture ( I kept about 1/4 of a cup of the flour mixture in the bowl and added the nuts and chips to it, to help them stay up in the batter and not sink), beat the batter until it is just combined, and stir in the nuts and chips. Pour the batter into prepared pan and bake the bread in the middle of the preheated oven for 40-50 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Cool the bread on a rack. Cooled bread can be wrapped well in plastic wrap and foil, chilled for 1 wk or frozen for 1 month.

I put off baking the bread until the 3rd. Kept rethinking and making sure I really liked the idea. I was able to get it made a few hours before work (those lucky lucky people whom get all my treats!). So I got my 3 pics and took it in for the taste test. Mind you I have never made it with this combo before and didn't even taste it myself yet ha-ha. They saw it from a distance. I walked into the hospital and 3 of them waiting for the shift said "YAY what did you bring us????" I said "You will see ". I had to drop some off in our diet office (they demand to be served first lol) and the rest to the kitchen. They jumped on it. I had nothing but "oh my god what is in this bread" It was gone so fast, and I barely got a small piece of this amazingly moist and oh so tasty banana bread. I will tell you that this may be the ONLY recipe I will make from now on, It was awesome. They all wanted the recipe and more banana bread!! Hope you all enjoy it if you make it, it is definitely one of my new favorites =).
Thanks for the chance to create it!!