Banana Bread for Mother's Day

We decided to make (among other things) a loaf of banana bread for dessert for Wonder Woman on her Mother's Day dinner .  Not content with the usual sugar-laden, refined-white-flour offerings, we decided to make it slightly healthier.  Not that this would considered to be health food, but we don't have to feel quite so guilty about having two slices each.

Here's how we made it.

Ingredients:

• 125 ml (1/2 cup) butter
• 60 ml (1/4 cup) sugar
• 3 mashed, ripe bananas. The riper the better, because riper bananas are softer and sweeter
• 2 eggs
• 190 g (1 1/4 cups) whole-wheat flour
• 10 ml (2 tsp) baking powder
• 2 ml (1/2 tsp) salt
• 2 ml (1/2 tsp) nutmeg

Optional, one or more of the following:

• 250 ml (1 cup) blueberries.  Frozen are good, but see the note below
• 125 ml (1/2 cup) chocolate chips
• 125 ml (1/2 cup) chopped walnuts

For our version, we added some milk-chocolate chocolate chips.  Yum!


Directions:

Butter and sugar creamed together

After bananas and eggs are added

With the dry ingredients and the choco chips

1. Preheat the oven to 180C (350F).
2. Cream the butter and sugar until it's fluffy.
3. Add the bananas and eggs and beat until smooth and creamy.
4. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg.
5. Lightly mix the dry ingredients into the banana mixture.  Do not overmix!
6. If you are using any of the optional ingredients, add them now.  Again, do not overmix!
7. Grease the inside of a loaf pan with butter.  Line the bottom with baking parchment paper.
8. Pour the mixture into the loaf pan.
9. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes.  The bread is done when a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
10. Let the loaf rest on a rack for 5 minutes, then remove the loaf from the pan.  Let it cool some more before slicing and eating.  I know that's hard, but the bread continues to cook after it leaves the oven.

In the pan, before putting it in the oven

Notes:

If you are using frozen blueberries, it's best to add them in layers when pouring the batter into the pan.  Otherwise the colour runs (we learned this from the Best of Bridge website)

This recipe doubles easily.  You can freeze the extra loaf.

Because we used whole-wheat flour, we had to increase the amount of baking powder from the usual.  Whole wheat is denser than white and is heavier and requires more of a "lift."

And Bow-Tie Calico approves.