Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Clean Banana Bread


We eat a lot of bananas. They get used in baking, smoothies, tortilla roll-ups, fruit salad....the uses are endless! But somehow no matter how many bananas we eat, I always end up with one left over banana that is over ripe and no one wants to eat it. 

That's how I ended up with seven of these in my freezer.


SEVEN.

When I realized how many were in there, I knew it was time to make banana bread. But of course I needed a clean banana bread recipe, which I did not have. So to the internet I went. 

I found a couple different recipes. I mean, seriously, with Pinterest you can find 8 different ways to shave your legs without using store bought razors.

But after looking at all the recipes, I decided to go with the mother of all recipes. The Banana Loaf from the queen of clean eating herself - Tosca Reno. (applause, applause, applause)

Who is that? Well, she is famous for coming up with the Eat Clean Diet. She has a website, books, cookbooks, and who knows what else. If there was anything you ever wanted to know about eating clean, go to her website or go to the Eat Clean Diet website. I guarantee you will find your answers. 

Even though her recipe was already "clean", I still had to modify it a little to work with the ingredients I had on hand. But her original recipe is completely clean. I changed the oat flour to Whole Wheat White Flour and I changed the Stevia Baking Blend to honey. If you buy oat flour it can be expensive and the only stevia I keep around is for my coffee. I substituted these two things and I thought it still turned out wonderful.

It's really very simple.

Mix all of your dry ingredients in one bowl and combine your wet ingredients in another bowl.


Slowly pour flour mixture into wet ingredients and stir just until combined. 

Here's the fun part. Banana bread is SO versatile. You can add ANYTHING. Any kind of nut, raisins, chocolate chips, other fruits...this time I decided to go with chocolate chips. Hi, have you met me? I love chocolate.

Once your batter is mixed, then fold in your added ingredient.


Mmmmmmmmm........... chooooocolate.............

Obviously the chocolate chips aren't "clean" unless you buy the grain sweetened ones. But that's totally up to you!

Pour in greased 9x5 loaf pan.
 

Bake in the oven for 50 minutes at 325 degrees F.

Note: Bake it for the whole 50 minutes. My oven tends to cook quickly, so I took it out at 45 and it definitely could have used that extra 5 minutes. 


It's ok to go get a napkin if you are drooling right now. I'll wait......

.......Back? Cool.

So there you are! Clean Banana Bread (with chocolate chips). Easy peasy and delicious. I'll be honest...this loaf lasted almost two days. 

Good thing I had four more bananas in the freezer!

On that note, here's a teaser for you:
I did use those bananas yesterday for another type of bread....head over to my Facebook Page to find out what I made. You won't regret it.

Clean Banana Bread
  • 3 egg whites
  • 3 ripe bananas, mashed
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 1/3 cup honey
  • 2 cups flour (oat or whole wheat white)
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 1/2 cup chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease 9x5 loaf pan.

Beat egg whites in medium bowl and then stir in mashed bananas, applesauce, honey, and vanilla. Mix well.

Mix dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt) in another bowl.

Add dry mixture to wet mixture slowly, mixing just enough to get it all blended.

Pour into loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Let loaf stand for 10 mintues before slicing.

Devour.

*For all my gluten free friends - I'm not an expert, but I believe if you use gluten-free oat flour with this it would be gluten free. Yay!

1 comment: