Healthier Banana Bread : Made with Bran, Almonds and Olive Oil
UPDATE September 2024 – To this day, this remains our favourite recipe for banana bread. We even purposely leave bananas to get extra ripe just to make it. Sometimes we throw a handful of dark chocolate chips into the dry ingredients, for an extra treat.
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On with the original blogpost :
As Nick and I were tidying the kitchen after dinner last night, I told him I would bake something for dessert on the weekend. He replied, “You know what I’d really like you to make? Banana Bread. Or give me your recipe and I’ll make it.” That surprised me because Banana Bread is more of a snack or breakfast food than a dessert.
I’ve been testing this recipe for a couple of years now, tweaking it every time I’ve made it, in an attempt to make a healthier version that still tastes really good.
Now, based on his choice for what he really wanted me to bake when he could have picked anything, I think I hit on a winner the last time I made it! So, it’s finally time to stop experimenting and get this “Healthier Banana Bread” recipe down.
While most Banana Bread recipes contain melted butter, white flour, and up to a cup of sugar to make a single loaf, my recipe calls for heart-healthy Olive Oil (you can’t taste any olive flavour), bran, whole-wheat flour, and the minimal amount of sugar required to make it taste good, but not overly sweet. Also included are nutritious and protein-filled raw almonds, which are apparently the best nut to eat for disease prevention. Their fibre, along with that in the whole-wheat flour and bran, will fill you up, making this an excellent thing to have when you need a snack.
Oh, and a word about baking with bananas — You know when you have that one on the counter that just didn’t get eaten in time? Well, just put it in a bag or container (peeled or not) and stick it in the freezer. It will be a soggy looking mess when you thaw it out later to use in your baking, but don’t be turned off because it will be perfect for the purpose. You can use frozen bananas to make this bread, or a combo of very ripe fresh ones and frozen ones. Or, just fresh ripe ones, if you always manage to eat all your bananas before they get too brown.
So here’s the magic recipe. I hope you try it and enjoy it as much as we do.
Healthier Banana Bread, with Bran and Almonds
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
- 3/4 cup unbleached (regular) flour
- 1/3 cup wheat bran (not cereal but the kind you would use to make bran muffins)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- A pinch of salt
- 1/2 cup chopped raw (unsalted) almonds
- 1 1/4 cup or so of mashed ripe banana (= 1 large banana or two medium ones)
- 1 egg
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 2/3 cup milk
- 1/4 cup olive oil
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large bowl mix first 7 ingredients (the two kinds of flour, bran, baking powder, baking soda, salt and almonds) together with a fork to blend well.
In another bowl mix remaining ingredients (banana, egg, sugar, milk and oil) together with an electric hand-mixer or a whisk.
Blend dry ingredients into wet ones until well mixed (but don’t over-blend).
Pour into buttered loaf pan. Bake in the middle of the oven for 45 to 50 minutes or until done. (To check if it’s done, insert a tooth pick into the centre, if it comes out clean, your bread is baked.)
If you’d like to freeze some, you can slice it up and freeze the slices on a cookie sheet and then transfer into a bag, so you can have one slice at a time. Or not, either way, it freezes well.
Description
Banana Almond Bread
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Thanks for checking out my post. I hope you have a great weekend!
xo loulou
