Recipe: Old Fashioned Banana Bread

I always have a bunch of bananas in the fruit bowl for my morning breakfast, but there are times when I can't eat them fast enough and they turn to mush. That leaves me with two options: freeze them for smoothies of make banana bread.

I'd like to share with you a recipe for Option #2!  This is for gluten-free bread, but you can easily substitute the same amount of wheat or spelt flour in place of the all-purpose gluten-free flour and just eliminate the xanthan gum. You can also modify the recipe to make it oil-free by substituting apple sauce for the oil. It tastes just as fantastic and the bread is still moist and lightly sweet.

Enjoy it for breakfast or as an afternoon snack with some chai tea. It will remind you of the banana bread you ate growing up.

Ingredients

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour (or substitute 1 cup gluten-free flour, 3/4 cup brown rice flour, plus 1/2 tsp xanthan gum)

1 tsp baking soda1/2 tsp baking powder1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp ground flax seed plus 1/3 cup water
3 very ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup canola oil (or substitute 1/2 cup apple sauce to make it oil-free)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 cup organic sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 °F. Grease and flour a large loaf pan. In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. In a food processor, pulse together flax seed mixture, bananas, sugar, canola oil (or apple sauce), and vanilla until creamy with just a few small bits of bananas remaining. Add wet mixture to dry and stir together until no dry lumps of flour remain. (The batter will be thick, but don’t worry!) Fold in nuts. Spread into prepared pan, making the edges and corners higher than in the center. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until top is browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in pan 20 minutes.  Use a knife to gently loosen bread from sides of pan, then invert onto a cooling rack.  You’ll want to dive right in, but be patient and let cool completely before cutting.