Banana Bread

01

I have a weird relationship with banana bread. I’m not that crazy about it, but every once in a while it sounds really, really good. And then I’ll have some and be like huh, this stuff is actually really good. And then I kind of forget about it, make a million other kinds of quickbreads that sound better, and have that infrequent but strong craving for banana bread again months later. Rinse, repeat.

Now that we’ve had that riveting conversation, onto this particular banana bread. The nice thing about banana bread is that it’s easy to make it relatively healthy because mashed bananas make the bread so tender and moist <shudder> that you can reduce the oil and butter. They also lend some sweetness, so  you can decrease the sugar (and I, in fact, decreased it further than the original recipe). I did make some additional changes to this, like using all white whole wheat flour, using half brown sugar, and adding some cinnamon (banana bread without cinnamon is like a gyro without tzatziki) and chocolate chips.

Overall this was a big hit with everyone. I left it out the first day/night but refrigerated the leftovers after that. The banana/yogurt combo has a tendency to almost get *too* moist <double shudder> and almost soggy if you leave it out too long. The kids are always so excited to eat breakfast the days after we make quickbreads/muffins and recipes like this make it easy to comply with their requests to make them in the first place!

Banana Bread

  • 10 minutes
  • 1 hour
  • 1 loaf (12-14 slices)

Ingredients

  • 2 cups white whole wheat flour
  • 3/4 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/2 ts. salt
  • 1.25 tsp. ground cinnamon
  • 1/3 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/3 cup brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1.5 cups mashed very ripe banana (about 3-4 bananas)
  • 1/3 cup plain yogurt
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 2/3 cup mini or regular chocolate chips

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350º and spray a loaf pan with cooking spray.
  2. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon until combined
  3. Using a stand or hand mixer, beat together the sugars and butter until well blended. Add the eggs, one at a time, followed by the banana, yogurt, and vanilla, until combined. Add the flour mixture and beat at low speed, just until combined (I usually stop short of it being combined and finish with a spatula so as not to overmix). Fold in the chocolate chips.
  4. Scoop the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 45-55 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes before inverting on the rack to cool completely.
Liberally adapted from Cooking Light
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