The Best Low Fat Banana Bread

Earlier this week, I bought a basket full of bananas at the market that was marked 50% off. They were looking a little bruised but I figured they will make some mean banana bread when totally ripe. So I let them sit in the sun for days, and today, they looked so ugly that I decided to turn them beautiful again.

Having tried V’con’s lower fat banana bread (which was really good), I felt like trying other lower fat versions as well. And I came across the Almost No Fat Banana Bread recipe from Allrecipes.

After I read all the rave (and some not so raving) reviews on this banana bread, I decided to tweak the recipe a bit following some of the reviewers’ advice.

So here goes my version of the super moist , out of this world low fat banana recipe.

Almost No-Fat Banana Bread (revised from Allrecipes)

yield: 12 servings

Ingredients:

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 ~ 1/2 cup splenda or white sugar (the amount varies to your taste and bananas’ ripeness. I used 1/4 cup and they were still sweet)

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 whole egg

2 cups mashed bananas (I used 4 medium~large very ripe bananas)

1/3 cup applesauce

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease an 8×4 inch loaf pan.
2. In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon.
   
3. In a large bowl, combine applesauce,mashed bananas, egg and sugar. Mix well.
4. Fold in the dry ingredients to the wet. This is the most important part of the process: do NOT over stir!  Gently fold the batter until just moistened (the batter should not be smooth, it should look too lumpy).
5. Pour batter into the loaf pan.
   
6. Bake in preheated oven for 50 to 55 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of loaf comes out clean. Turn out onto wire rack and allow to cool before slicing.

I have no patience to wait until things cool (big problem!). When this banana bread was still very warm, I cut into one and it was looking a bit wet. It was from the large amount of bananas. This shouldn’t be a problem since as the bread cools off completely, it will still cook inside a bit and the extra moisture will keep the bread moist.

One of the major problems with low fat versions of breads were that they became stale very quickly(even in the course of one day!). This bread is so moist that it will stay that way for longer periods.

This recipe beats all other low fat versions. I’m throwing my other banana recipes away!

When exams are over…

This week was full of work and catching up. After another exam today, I was so relieved that they were all over and came home to relax.

For today’s lunch, I made Heidi Swanson’s Ultimate Veggie Burgers. These are by far the BEST veggie burger I’ve tried so far. The only change I made to the recipe was to use 2 eggs not 4. Even with that, it’s super moist with the right amount of lemony flavour that goes so well with the cilantro. If you haven’t tried it, I almost beg you to try it!!! They’re that good! No further explanations needed.

For my actual sandwich, I put the veggie burger patty between two slices of toasted  Nature Path’s organic wholewheat bread, added some slices of fresh cucumber and spread some ketchup. Talk about yummmmmmmmy! Needs no other spread whatsoever.

When I came home , I whipped up a real quick tofu scramble that literally took 5 minutes to make. It was quick and easy, as well very tasty!

After letting my dinner digest, I went back into the kitchen with freshly printed out recipes: Yogurt Tart and Chocolate Sesame Cookies.

I made the yogurt tart by straining my plain yogurt into three layers of coffee filters. I didn’t have the lemon the recipe called for so I used lime. The crust was rather crumbly but boy, they look fantastic! They’re still chilling in the fridge so I haven’t given it a taste yeat.

The next thing I made was VeggieMealPlan’s Chocolate Sesame Cookies.

I think I’m over doing it with the tahini,sesame and chocolate these days but what the heck, they go together so well! I halved the batch and came out with 6 medium sized cookies. I didn’t have black sesame seeds so I just added plain old white ones. But I think it gives a bit more colour contrast and they look so cute!

Relieved that exams are over and am so looking forward to the weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Vegan Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies

This morning on my trip to the grocery, I picked up a bag of dark chocolate chunks.

What better way is there to used them than in a Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookie???? I made PPK’s Chocolate Chip Cookies, except they were dark chocolate chunks!

These were so moist and chewy- it just calls for a cold glass of soy milk (which is exactly what I had)!

Even if you’re not vegan, you must try this recipe! Much better than adding all that butter/margarine.

Vegan Sesame Cookies

Today is one of those cloudy days. The air smells sweet of spring, and the weekend is dragging on like no other.

Since my brother is leaving for Toronto, I decided to pack a few bags of cookies for him-one of them being Cranberry Sesame Cookies.

Having tried Celine’s(from Have Cake, Will Travel) Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies before, I knew this recipe wouldn’t fail me either.

The cookie batter was looking a bit crumbly but I overcame my urge to add more of wet ingredients. Good thing I did because these turned out super moist and chewy!

This isn’t an all that great shot of the final product but boy, they were so good!

Since I didn’t have cranberries, I substituted them with dried prunes.

Crunchy outside, chewy inside with just the right touch of sweetness. From now on, I’ll be using sesame seeds a lot more!

Till Food Do Us Part

This blog is about the food and the events of my life.

I’ve decided to express my love of the culinary arts through this blog-I hope to meet lots of foodies just like me who is aware of their health, the environment, and everything in between.