Healthy Banana Bread Recipe

glic83

Hi all, just looking back through the cooking club thread and saw this version for banana bread, http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056903732

I'm just wondering if there is a healthier version or would it just not taste right without the sugar and butter?

janmaree

My own recipe calls for butter but I now use rapeseed oil instead, it makes the loaf lovely and moist and it keeps well. I guess you could substitute honey for the sugar but I find the dark muscovado sugar works well and gives a nice toffee-ish flavour. Let's face it, healthy and cake don't necessarily go hand in hand but a little of something really nice makes us happy. If you do make changes, it would be nice to hear how you got on.

Here's my recipe if it's of any use to you. If you go with the oil then it can be mixed by the all in one method, quick and easy. I know "cup" measurements drive us all crazy but I use my pyrex measuring jug to the 8 fl.oz. level for one cup and it always turns out fine.

Banana Bread


Ingredients:

Half cup soft margarine or butter OR half cup of oil
One cup brown sugar (white is fine too)
3 eggs
4 ripe bananas - mashed
3 tablespoons milk
2.5 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon bread soda
Half teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
Half teaspoon each of whatever spices you have:
cinnamon / ginger / nutmeg / ground cloves / mixed spice etc.
Half cup sultanas or raisins
Chopped crystalised or preserved ginger – to taste



Method:

Preheat oven to 350 F / 180 C

Line a large loaf tin or two smaller ones with butter wrappers, baking parchment or loaf tin liners.

Cream butter and sugar, beat in eggs, bananas, milk and vanilla.

Sift all the dry ingredients together and add to wet mixture with the sultanas and ginger. Beat until just combined.

Pour into the loaf tin and bake for about an hour or until a toothpick or skewer comes out clean.

Cool in the pan on a rack for about 10 minutes, then turn out and cool completely on rack.


Tip:

Good for using up over-ripe bananas. If there’s no time to bake when the bananas are really ripe, pop them in the freezer. They defrost quite quickly and as they’re then extremely soft, they mix into the batter very easily.

glic83

I think that's the issue "a little of something nice" the problem is when to stop lol. Interesting take with the rapeseed oil. I might give that a try.
Thanks for the response.

Zaph

I've used this recipe a couple of times and I really like the end result. It doesn't contain either butter or sugar, and I'm sure you could leave out the chocolate chips to make it even healthier (although I use 53% choc chips, so the sugar content in the chocolate is significantly reduced).

janmaree

Thanks Zaph, I will give yours a try for a change and it will let me use some of that coconut flour sitting in the cupboard!

Whispered

Porridge bread with mashed banana works well. One pot natural yoghurt, two pots porridge oats, two mashed bananas (or more or less, it's a very forgiving recipe) and then nuts or seeds if you'd like. Raw cocoa nibs or very dark chocolate in it is lovely too. It's been ages since I made it so I can't remember the timing/temperature but it might be worth looking up.

It is much more dense than normal banana bread or cake so might not be to your taste, but definitely healthier.

glic83

I've tried the oat loaf, found it very heavy, so swapped out 150g of oats for 150g of wholemeal flour. Still very nice just not as heavy , think I'll have to make all varieties to see which one I like ��

tickingclock

janmaree wrote: »

My own recipe calls for butter but I now use rapeseed oil instead, it makes the loaf lovely and moist and it keeps well. I guess you could substitute honey for the sugar but I find the dark muscovado sugar works well and gives a nice toffee-ish flavour. Let's face it, healthy and cake don't necessarily go hand in hand but a little of something really nice makes us happy. If you do make changes, it would be nice to hear how you got on.

Here's my recipe if it's of any use to you. If you go with the oil then it can be mixed by the all in one method, quick and easy. I know "cup" measurements drive us all crazy but I use my pyrex measuring jug to the 8 fl.oz. level for one cup and it always turns out fine.

Banana Bread


Ingredients:

Half cup soft margarine or butter OR half cup of oil
One cup brown sugar (white is fine too)
3 eggs
4 ripe bananas - mashed
3 tablespoons milk
2.5 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon bread soda
Half teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
Half teaspoon each of whatever spices you have:
cinnamon / ginger / nutmeg / ground cloves / mixed spice etc.
Half cup sultanas or raisins
Chopped crystalised or preserved ginger – to taste



Method:

Preheat oven to 350 F / 180 C

Line a large loaf tin or two smaller ones with butter wrappers, baking parchment or loaf tin liners.

Cream butter and sugar, beat in eggs, bananas, milk and vanilla.

Sift all the dry ingredients together and add to wet mixture with the sultanas and ginger. Beat until just combined.

Pour into the loaf tin and bake for about an hour or until a toothpick or skewer comes out clean.

Cool in the pan on a rack for about 10 minutes, then turn out and cool completely on rack.


Tip:

Good for using up over-ripe bananas. If there’s no time to bake when the bananas are really ripe, pop them in the freezer. They defrost quite quickly and as they’re then extremely soft, they mix into the batter very easily.

I'd three over ripe bannanas so eating this bread now on a picnic. Great recipe

Psychologeeee

Minimalist Baker do a nice banana muffin recipe if I recall correctly. You could always bump it up to a loaf size.

glic83

Just a though could you use molasses instead of sugar?

janmaree

glic83 wrote: »

Just a though could you use molasses instead of sugar?

My grandmother's ginger cake calls for molasses (treacle?) so I don't see why not. It's certainly worth a try and it should give a lovely colour too!

glic83

janmaree wrote: »

My grandmother's ginger cake calls for molasses (treacle?) so I don't see why not. It's certainly worth a try and it should give a lovely colour too!

What's the equivalent for replacing the sugar though?

Space Dog

Molasses or treacle won't be any healthier that sugar. There are thousands of sugar-free recipes for banana bread out there if you really want to leave out sugar, I'd imagine it would be a better idea to try one of those as they have been tested before instead of changing the cooking club recipe.

glic83

Space Dog wrote: »

Molasses or treacle won't be any healthier that sugar. There are thousands of sugar-free recipes for banana bread out there if you really want to leave out sugar, I'd imagine it would be a better idea to try one of those as they have been tested before instead of changing the cooking club recipe.

Tbh I just happen to have 2 jars of molasses in the press and was looking to use it up, though this might be an opportunity to do it

janmaree

Googled for some accurate substitution info and it seems to boil down to one and a third cup of molasses in place of every cup of brown sugar, then try to reduce the liquid content by 5 tablespoons. From what I read, molasses seems to have extra vitamins in it that sugar doesn't have. I haven't tried this yet but I think I'd just leave out one of the bananas in my own recipe and leave the liquid content at that. In the interests of R&D and as my curiousity has kicked in, I think I'll make it this evening and will report back if you'd like to wait another day? I'm not suggesting that you go with my recipe, the end result should be fairly similar in any case.

glic83

janmaree wrote: »

Googled for some accurate substitution info and it seems to boil down to one and a third cup of molasses in place of every cup of brown sugar, then try to reduce the liquid content by 5 tablespoons. From what I read, molasses seems to have extra vitamins in it that sugar doesn't have. I haven't tried this yet but I think I'd just leave out one of the bananas in my own recipe and leave the liquid content at that. In the interests of R&D and as my curiousity has kicked in, I think I'll make it this evening and will report back if you'd like to wait another day? I'm not suggesting that you go with my recipe, the end result should be fairly similar in any case.

I went with your recipe halved the sugar and put in 2 tea spoons of molasses, just waiting for it to cool the now

janmaree

Will be very interested to hear your thoughts on the result. I came back to say that I don't have enough molasses in the cupboard to try it myself and I won't get out till tomorrow to shop but I will let you know how it turns out for me, I expect it will be one dark cake though!

I really hope you enjoy it btw!

glic83

janmaree wrote: »

Will be very interested to hear your thoughts on the result. I came back to say that I don't have enough molasses in the cupboard to try it myself and I won't get out till tomorrow to shop but I will let you know how it turns out for me, I expect it will be one dark cake though!

I really hope you enjoy it btw!

Just cut off a slice, used one load tin as it looked big enough should really have used 2, I like it but nothing to really compare it against, I used the rapeseed oil instead of butter and its nice and moist, left it in for nearly an hour

janmaree

I promised to share my own experience of adjusting this recipe and I have to say that I'm pretty pleased with the result. Like you, I used half a cup of sugar and made up the other half with a quarter cup each of pitted dates and molasses. I blitzed all the wet ingredients (plus dates and crystallized ginger) in the food processor, it was a bit noisy but it worked! I left out the milk altogether and used 3 bananas rather than 4 as the mixture was quite wet. Then I stirred the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and split the mix between two loaf tins. It's always quite a wet batter and I usually pour it into the tins but it was really wet today. They baked at 180C fan for 45 minutes, turning out quite dark as suspected but ended up tasting good. I think I notice that the cake isn't quite as sweet but that might just be in my head! I actually enjoy altering recipes to suit ingredients on hand and that sort of thing so it doesn't really scare me; the foxes in our garden are not fussy eaters (I've seen them :eek:) so if it all goes pear shaped, at least they're happy!

Anyway, I think I'll reduce the sugar in my banana bread in future, so thank you for the idea in the first place. J.

glic83

Just to post an update, have been trying this the last few days and even today it's still moist do think the rapeseed oil makes a nice difference. Think I'll add some almond flakes the next time. Really happy with how the 1st attempt turned out.