Banana Bread

I have had the same two bananas sitting in my freezer for months now, just begging to be used. I’ve kept my eyes peeled for a bread or muffin recipe that only called for 2 bananas but just about every recipe I saw required 3 or 4 bananas. Finally, yesterday as I was throwing out an empty box of parchment paper I saw a banana bread recipe printed inside that I could use! I whipped this banana bread up before I lost the recipe or forgot about it. My 2 bananas didn’t quite measure one cup so I added a bit of plain yogurt to get to the one cup mark. I also substituted half of the all-purpose flour for whole wheat pastry flour since I’ve had good luck with it in the past few recipes I’ve tried. The result was a really tasty and moist banana bread! It’s a little light on banana flavor, but I expected that with only 2 bananas. The mini chocolate chips were a nice addition – not so many chips that you get one in every bite but just an occasional pop of chocolate. This will definitely be a treat for breakfast this week!

Banana Bread
adapted from Reynolds

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 medium (1 cup) ripe bananas, mashed
2 eggs
1/3 cup canola oil
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan with cooking spray, line the bottom with parchment paper and spray the paper with cooking spray.

Combine the flours, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a medium bowl. In a large bowl whisk bananas, eggs oil, milk and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir with a rubber spatula just until moistened. Fold in the chocolate chips.

Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool bread in the pan for 10 minutes before removing from the pan and cooling completely on a wire rack.