Whole Wheat Banana Nut Bread

 Do you make a grocery list before you go shopping?  I always do.  But I got home from a week-long trip not long ago, and although I had left enough meals for my hubs for the time I was gone, of course there was no food left at the end of the week.  So we had to make a late-night grocery store run without a list. Ack!  When my husband goes shopping, he goes around the store, finds what he likes, and then buys a TON.  For example, 5 pounds of peanuts.  (?!)  And so many bananas that we couldn't possibly eat them all before half of them went bad.  You don't even want to know how much we (he) spent grocery shopping that night, yet, the next day I realized we had nothing for dinner!  Unless we wanted to eat several pounds of oatmeal, peanuts, or bananas. So of course I had to go grocery shopping again, this time with a list after I'd planned out our dinners.  Oh well.  

So anyways, you know what to do when you see a bunch of bad bananas on your counter, right?

That's right, make banana bread!  With nuts, of course. Because banana bread without nuts is lacking a lot of goodness.

I tried out TWO recipes (because we had a LOT of bad bananas...).  I added one cup of chopped walnuts to both.

The first one is from Carrie Vitt's blog, Deliciously Organic.  I just love her site.  Her photographs are amazing and her recipes are, too.  Plus, all her recipes use unprocessed ingredients.

Her banana bread recipes uses:

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 tablespoons coconut oil

2 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (I used regular wheat flour)

1 cup whole cane sugar or sucanat

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

3 very ripe bananas, mashed

1/4 cup buttermilk

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla exract

(Bake at 3:50 for 50-55 min.)

The second recipe is from 100 Days of Real Food.  I just found this blog recently; it's about  a family who made a pledge to eat only real food for 100 days, and it worked out so well that they have continued eating that way.

Their recipe calls for:

2 1/4 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 ripe bananas, mashed

1/4 cup plain yogurt

1/4 cup honey

2 eggs

1/3 cup oil

1 teapsoon vanilla

(Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes).

You can see that both recipes are very similar.  The main difference is that the first recipe uses 1 cup of sugar, while the second uses only 1/4 cup honey. 

The first recipe (with sugar) is on the left; the second (with honey) is on the right.

My husband and I taste-tested both loaves.  It did take a few bites and some thinking to figure out which one we liked better!

The second recipe, which uses just 1/4 cup of honey, relies on the sweetness of the banana.  It wasn't bad at all, in fact, it was quite acceptable and we definitely will enjoy eating it.  The first recipe, though, is more like a dessert bread, the kind you have to stop yourself from gobbling up!  The second recipe is more like just bread, not very sweet but definitely a yummy snack.

 

So if you are trying to make something that is more like a treat, I would use the first recipe.  If you are trying to cut down on sugar, I would use the second.

Here's what happens if you make both loaves and leave them out:

 Enjoy!!