Banana Bread

I love my mom’s banana bread recipe and have never found a recipe that I like even nearly as much. Here’s the problem, though. 1 CUP OF OIL!! I know. That is a lot of oil. So, the girls and I baked banana bread yesterday and used this recipe–and I actually think it’s pretty good. I didn’t have yogurt, so I substituted buttermilk. Is that even a real substitution? I don’t know, but it seemed to work. I had to bake it an extra 10 minutes, and I covered the top with foil for the last 20 minutes. I think if I did it like that again, I would turn the heat down a bit as well since the crust is a little too brown for my taste. Anyway, it’s pretty good and WAY better for you than the other recipe!

From Cooking Light (of course)

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas) –I used four kinda small ones
1/3 cup plain low-fat yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cooking spray

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350°.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt, stirring with a whisk.

Place sugar and butter in a large bowl, and beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 1 minute). Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add banana, yogurt, and vanilla; beat until blended. Add flour mixture; beat at low speed just until moist.

Spoon batter into an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

Nutritional Information
Calories: 187 (21% from fat)
Fat: 4.3g (sat 2.4g,mono 1.2g,poly 0.3g)
Protein: 3.3g
Carbohydrate: 34.4g
Fiber: 1.1g
Cholesterol: 40mg
Iron: 1mg
Sodium: 198mg
Calcium: 20mg

Cooking Light, SEPTEMBER 2003