Healthy Apples & Bananas Bread

Today is Friday.

Today I wanted to go a little healthier with my baking. I noticed my good little eaters started down a slippery slope of eating their healthies and then enjoying a treat, and snowballed into sugar-crazed Pavlovian puppies "I'm-done-eating-what's-my-treat?" Salmon, demolished. "Ice cream?" Garbanzo beans gone, "How many Oreos can I have?" "I finished my frozen waffle, do I get candy?" Eat --> Treat. Food --> Dessert. Thank goodness this isn't a parenting blog!  

Per my friend's Katie's request, I went with a banana bread recipe. Katie's kids eat really healthily- she's probably going to add spinach to this. Actually, you could probably add 2 cups of chopped spinach and it wouldn't change the flavor much. Tell me if you do that.

Anyways, hopefully a wholesome, fruity bread will help take the edge off as I wean them from the hard stuff. This is meant to be a lighter version of banana bread for an afternoon snack, or breakfast perhaps. I seriously just wondered to myself if this would be good with vanilla ice cream. It is always the parents' fault.

Liz's Healthy Apples & Bananas Bread

Ingredients

1 T. brown sugar, plus 1/2 cup, packed, separated

1/2 tsp. cinnamon, plus 1 1/2 tsp., separated 

1 apple, peeled and chopped

1/4 cup nuts of your choice I used almonds, but walnuts or pecans would have been better. Those are the two nuts that my daughter is allergic to though. You could also use dried fruit if you're not a nut person.

1 pat butter

4-5 ripe bananas, smashed Old, rotting bananas are so great for baking. Not quite great for photographing.

1/2 cup applesauce

1/4 cup honey

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

2 cups whole wheat flour

3/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. baking powder 

Topping: 1-2 T. brown sugar

Instructions

1) Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add in apples and nuts. Top with 1 T. brown sugar and 1/2 tsp. cinnamon and cook, stirring for 4-5 minutes. I wish I could make a candle out of that scent. mmmmmmm

2) Preheat oven to 350°F and set the rack to the middle of the oven. Grease the sides and bottom of a loaf pan. I use butter wrappers that I save in a baggie in my fridge.

3) Stir bananas, applesauce, honey, eggs and vanilla into a large mixing bowl. Add in flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and apple-nut mixture. Stir it up and pour it in your greased loaf pan. Sprinkle another 1-2 T. of brown sugar on top. If you're a plant mom like me, put the banana peels in a mason jar filled with water and after a few days, water your plants with the potassium water. It's great fertilizer.

Forgot honey in my ingredients picture, here's a visual.

4) Bake for 55-65 minutes. Check your bread after 45 minutes and cover with foil if it is getting too dark. Bread is ready when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

I like to ate ate ate aaapples and old ba-nay-naaays...

 

 

"Mom? Can I eat an apple to get a piece of this?"