Monday, August 30, 2010

Healthy Banana Bread loaded with all the good stuff....not only Whole Wheat but Eggless too

It's been little busy over here, summer vacation is over. Trying to set some routine after 2 & 1/2 months of  break. Mind is working hard again to find interesting options for school lunch & after school snack, on top of that this year in 3rd grade they have to take snack too. So here's this simple recipe which I feel is a very good option for any time of the day snack, we have been eating this as morning breakfast with a glass of milk or coffee. It's quite filling & healthy too. It's Banana Bread but not regular kind, I'm using not only whole wheat flour but oats also in this. I had no plans of making this bread but thanks to my little one she has found one new hobby, whenever she can grab a banana she likes to peel it, until now she usually would eat it too, but now-a-days she only peels them & she's done. Now what do I do with 3 peeled bananas in a day. So I twisted my regular banana bread recipe added few more things to it and here goes the recipe(please do check the variations at the end of the recipe, got whole wheat version too) :

What U need :
dry ingredients :
  • 1/2 cup + 1 Tbsp. all purpose flour (I used maida)
  • 1/2 cup whole wheat flour(I used atta-flour used for making Indian style flat bread)
  • 1/2 cup quick cooking oats
  • 1 /1/2 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1 tsp. dry ginger powder(optional)

wet ingredients :
  • 3 med. size ripe bananas
  • 3 Tbsp. veg. oil
  • juice of 1 orange
  • 4 Tbsp. honey
  • 1/4 cup light brown sugar

good stuff :
  • 2 Tbsp. dry roasted flax seeds
  • 1/2 cup roasted, chopped almonds
  • 10 dates chopped

What U do :
  1. Take all the good stuff(nuts & dry fruit etc.) & sprinkle 1 Tbsp. of flour on them & mix them with the hand so they get good coating of flour. It  helps preventing them from sinking to the bottom of the pan.
  2. Mix all the dry ingredients using a fork making sure no lumps are formed.
  3. In a big bowl mash bananas using the back side of fork & add rest of the wet ingredients from the list.
  4. Add dry ingredients to wet ones. Gently mix them.
  5. Add mixture of good stuff to the batter, fold it in.
  6. Bake it in the greased loaf pan for 35-40 min.(till the tooth pick comes clean) at 350 degree F.


Note :
This bread was little crumbly but very flavorful, it reminded me of fruit cake & was quite soft even for next couple of days. I did made this for 3-4 times in this month but every time with little variations. Actually this recipe is very forgiving one can easily adjust the ingredients according to the availability or taste. All the variations had almost same amount of oats.

Variations :
First was with half all purpose flour & half whole wheat flour.
 Second was with totally whole wheat flour, came out really good without any compromise on taste.

Third was again totally whole wheat flour but I added 2 Tbsp. of Ragi(finger millet) flour & 1 Tbsp. of flax seed(alsi) meal(powder) also. Instead of almond & dates I only used around 1/2 cup of black raisins & I didn't had any oranges so I added 1-8 0z. carton of apple juice, reduced oil to 2 Tbsp. only(works fine) also reduced the sugar a little bit. Bananas used were also one & a half only. I baked them in mini bundt pan so baking time was reduced to 16 min. only at 350 degree F(recipe yielded 12 mini bundt cakes-I had filled each cavity to 3/4 level). I highly recommend this recipe if you are trying to bake with whole wheat flour as it was light & not at all heavy texture. And these were not at all crumbly. Here's the click...
And this wonderful healthy bread/mini bundt cakes  goes to Champa for her weekly bake-off.

17 comments:

Priya Suresh said...

Prefectly baked and delicious bread..

Hamaree Rasoi said...

SO your little one is actually helping you to make many dishes out of bananas :-) everyday...Looks perfect and healthy too.
Deepa
Hamaree Rasoi

notyet100 said...

looks delicious,..perfetc for snack

Champa said...

Wow, you are experimenting with so many varieties of the single recipe, good job. Thanks for the entry. You know I have an obsession of cake pans and now that I saw your mini bundt pan, I am feeling like buying one. My husband says he'll have to build a room just for my crap.

Suman Singh said...

WOW..those are lovely bread recipes..each one looks perfectly baked and delectable! and yeah sounds healthy too!

Satya said...

wow what a healthy banana bread ...love ur different variations of ingredients for make a same bread ..thanks for sharing

Satya
http://www.superyummyrecipes.com

Rachana said...

Thats such a healthy and delicious bread!

Sushma Mallya said...

Perfectly baked & it looks so yum too

suma said...

Healthy and tasty snacks for kids' lunch box is a real challenge. Nice to see three variations of the recipe here. I recently got a mini bundt pan too and am waiting to use it, only I need to buy an oven big enough to fit it in:-)

Joyti said...

O delicious! And eggless...how nice and healthy.

Spice said...

Thanks everyone.

@ Deepa, thou I've kept banana out of her reach but still she tricks us convincing us that she gonna eat....we can't say no to that innocent face, result I'm drinking lot of banan shake...

Spice said...

@ Bangalore Baker, Thanks dear....I totally agree with u...I see new kitchen suff specially baking I feel like I gotta buy that.....I joke to my husband sometime when we have our own house kitchen should be living room size....well no harm in dreaming....

Spice said...

@Suma, Thanks dear....I hope u soon get chance to bake in your new bundt pan....

Namitha said...

That's so full of great things :-) yummy yumm

Radhika said...

This looks fab. Slurppp

Rita said...

WOW! Everything in that recipe spells healthy; looks realy good,

Aparna S Mallya said...

Healthy bread! Liked your variations too.