Banana Bread

 

 

The next time you see overly ripe organic bananas on sale, buy a bunch or two and make some BANANA BREAD. You can also peel some and freeze them for use in making smoothies. They are sweeter and more easily digestible when the skins are beginning to turn brown and show no more green. Brown spots on the skin are a good thing. If any bad spots are on the banana itself, just scoop them off.

Wet Ingredients
2 — ripe bananas, mashed
1 cup — water
3/4 cup — Sucanat
1/2 cup — sunflower oil
1 teaspoon — vanilla
Sprinkle — salt

Dry Ingredients

2 cups — whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 Tablespoon — non-aluminum baking powder (like Rumford)

 

Method

To make banana bread, preheat the oven to 350F degrees and oil a medium-sized loaf pan, though this could also be made in a cake pan if that's all you have. Just cook it for a shorter amount of time.

In a bowl combine half a cup of sunflower oil, three quarters of a cup of Sucanat — which is organic brown sugar, a sprinkle of salt, and a teaspoon of vanilla.

Add two ripe bananas and mash them with a potato masher.

Add two cups of whole wheat pastry flour, into which you've mixed three-quarters of a tablespoon of baking powder.

Add a cup of water and stir it all together, and then pour into the loaf pan, which should be about three-quarters full.

Bake it for forty-five minutes or until it springs back to your touch. Let it cool before slicing or removing from pan. We, of course, didn't wait, and our pieces were hot and crumbly. I had two of my served pieces disappear on me and had to keep cutting myself another one — I guess they liked it.

If your baked goods are ever not seeming to rise properly, check the expiration date on the baking powder can. It doesn't work as well after a year. I tend to buy a larger container and transfer it into an old can I've used for years, but you should only do that if you bake a lot. Otherwise, just buy the smallest can more frequently.