Wednesday, June 15, 2016

banana bread variations

Yummy note: This original recipe is one of my old standbys. I recently modified it slightly to reduce the amount of sugar and replaced regular vegetable oil with a healthier substitute of coconut oil. This is a great basic banana bread that stays delicious for several days even after you make it. Or if you make bigger batches, you can always freeze and they thaw out nicely for a quick breakfast snack. We like making the mini loaves at our place, in order to be able to change up the flavors a bit. Usually we have a few plain traditional loaves, plus some cinnamon swirl, chocolate chip, any my recent favorite variations here - peanut butter swirl and whiskey banana bread. Have fun experimenting and enjoy the flavor combinations. 


Peanut Butter Swirl Banana Bread

Ingredients: 
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp orange juice
2 eggs - well beaten
3 large ripe bananas - mashed
2 cups flour
3-4 tbsp peanut butter 

Optional: 
1/4 cup chopped nuts, dried fruit, or chocolate chips
  
Whiskey Banana Bread 

Ingredients:
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup coconut oil
2-3 tbsp whiskey
2 eggs - well beaten
3 large ripe bananas - mashed
1 tsp baking soda2 cups flour
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix slightly softened coconut oil and sugar together in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, mix orange juice and baking soda until bubbly and stir in eggs and mashed bananas.If using the whiskey variation, just replace the whiskey with the orange juice in the above step. Next, pour that into the larger bowl with the oil and sugar bowl and mix. Lastly, add in the flour to the larger bowl. Stir well, but try not to over mix it. Pour batter into greased loaf pans. Stir in your optional mix-in ingredients; whether it be, chopped nuts, chocolate chips, dried fruit, or peanut butter. With the peanut butter swirl, place a peanut butter on the top of the batter and take a knife and swirl it in. Bake accordingly to the size of pan you choose. For about 8 mini loaves - bake about 13-15 minutes, for 4 small loaves - bake for about 25-30 minutes, and for a larger pan, bake roughly about 1 hour. Continue to bake until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.