Delicious Banana Bread Recipe

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My husband thinks I’m particularly odd since I only eat bananas when they’re verging on green. Unfortunately, I can’t excuse myself by saying it’s for a specific health conscious reason - it’s just me!

So, when a friend of ours recently gave us a rather large bag of bananas I knew I’d have to do something with them pretty soon. I decided to made banana bread, and this one is a real winner. It’s very moist, and simply delicious. And, it’s had a bit of a low fat makeover to boot.

Banana, Date and Pecan Bread

Ingredients:

• 125g low fat spread
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups wholemeal self-raising flour
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 cup mashed banana (about 3 bananas)
• 1/2 cup coconut
• 1/2 cup low fat milk or buttermilk
• 1/3 cup chopped pecans
• 1/3 cup chopped dried pitted dates

Method:

1. Preheat oven to moderate, 180 C. Lightly grease and line bottom of a 10 x 20cm loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the spread and sugar together until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
3. Sift the flour and spices together, returning husks to mixture. Fold into this mixture with banana, coconut, milk, pecans and dates. Spoon into prepared pan.
4. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a skewer inserted in centre comes out clean and dry. Cool in pan for 5 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Slice and serve, or toast.

Nutritional info per serve: 924kJ, 9.5g total fat (2.7g saturated fat), 29.8g carbohydrate, 3.4g dietary fibre.

You can use any nuts you prefer (I used walnuts), and I also substituted the dates for sultanas which worked well. For a different twist you could also replace the banana with grated zucchini or carrot.

Recipe comes from a magazine here in Australia, called “Everyday Food” (issue 3).

Photo source