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I mentioned yesterday that I have been trying to save a little money on my groceries lately. I was inspired by Crystal Paine of Money Saving Mom to go to the store and look for the clearance deals. I have been getting some great deals on meats, bread, yogurt, and milk. Yesterday morning I happened upon some clearance out bananas, and I decided that it would be really fun to make some banana bread.
I haven’t been able to bake in a while because I’ve been so busy. But I really enjoy baking, it’s one of my favorite things to do. There’s something fun about making something from scratch and feeding it to your family. I also occasionally try new things (and fail) and torture my family by making them eat them, so there’s also that.
When I got home from the store, I went looking for a recipe for banana bread. Over the years I have tried a lot of recipes for banana bread. Some of them have been awesome, especially the ones that contain cream cheese. Because cream cheese makes everything better. I found this recipe on the Kitchn. I have used many recipes from here before when I was making dinner or cooking something from scratch. The recipes on this site are always really reliable.
Something that I really liked about this recipe is that you were able to sub out some of the ingredients for more healthy options. I decided that instead of using white sugar that I would try to use my coconut sugar. It has been sitting in my pantry for a while and I really needed to use it.
That was the only substitution that I made yesterday but I was thinking that you could also say about coconut oil for the butter if you wanted to. You could also use brown sugar instead of coconut or white sugar. I really think that the coconut sugar gave it a lot of flavor. I also didn’t completely mash my bananas so there are some chunks of banana in the bread. I personally think the big chunks make the bread even better .
Some ideas for using your banana bread :
Send it to lunch with your kids.
Have a slice for breakfast with your coffee or tea.
Use it as a dessert or serve it with ice cream.
Add some chocolate chips and make muffins for the kids breakfast or lunches.
Serve it as a side at dinner.
You can find the original recipe here.
Ingredients
- 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
- 1 cup Coconut sugar
- A little bit of sugar to sprinkle on top
- 2 large eggs
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 medium bananas, very ripe
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup chopped nuts or chocolate chips
Instructions
- Arrange a rack in the bottom third of the oven and heat to 350°F. Line an 8x5-inch loafpan
- with parchment paper, letting the excess hang over the long sides to form a sling. Spray the inside with cooking spray.
- If using nuts, toast them in the oven for 10 minutes as the oven is pre-heating.
- Melt the butter in the microwave or you can substitute coconut oil.
- Combine the butter and sugar. Place the melted butter and sugar in a large bowl and whisk until combined. (You can also use a stand mixer)
- Add the eggs. Mix until completely combined and the mixture is smooth.
- Add the milk and vanilla, mix in.
- Mash in the bananas. Peel the bananas and add them to the bowl. Using the end of the whisk or a dinner fork, mash them into the batter. Leave the bananas as chunky or as smooth as you prefer. If you prefer an entirely smooth banana bread, mash the bananas.
- Fold in the nuts or chocolate, if using.
- Scatter the nuts or chocolate over the batter and gently fold them in. separately until no more lumps remain, and then whisk them into the batter.
- Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 50-60 minutes.
Enjoy!!
