Baking is something that the people in my family share a passion for. I think it's because there is so much joy that comes from receiving a compliment or filling someones hungry belly with delicious things.
It is the deepest desire of my heart to show people love and food is such a tangible way of doing that.
I was elated when I opened a cookbook full of all the recipes I admired growing up at my wedding shower. My Aunt Kim had worked hard to compile recipes for food and marriage from all the women who love me. It was a very special gift.
This is my Aunt Kim's banana bread recipe. I am delighted to get to share it with you!
Banana bread is definitely one of my comfort foods. There is nothing in the world like warm banana bread with butter in the early morning or late at night with a tall glass of milk.
I hope you get as much use and joy out of this recipe as I have.
Banana Bread
Ingredients
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter
2 eggs
1 1/2 cup mashed ripe bananas (roughly 2)
1/3 cup water
1 2/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Grease only bottom of loaf pan.
- Mix sugar and butter stir in eggs until blended.
- Add bananas and water. Stir for 30 seconds.
- Stir in all remaining ingredients except for nuts.
- Stir in nuts.
- Pour into pan and bake for 50-60 minutes until toothpick inserted into center comes out dry.
- Cool for 5 minutes.
- Loosen sides from pan with a knife and remove from pan.
Hey Brittany! Long time no talk :) I just wanted to share a little secret with you that I recently found out myself. I too love to experiment with food and I'm really set in my ways with the types of food I like to make. Needless to say all of them are sweet. Hehe. Anyways, for health reasons I too need to eat healthy to keep my auto-immune sickness under control, but I don't like giving up the food I already love. The way I have gotten around this is by substituting 'normal' ingredients with 'healthy' ingredients. For example, instead of using normal flour, I substitute it with almond or coconut flour or a blend of the too. And instead of sugar, I use an all natural sweetener called stevia. Stevia is awesome because you can get it in liquid or powder form and you can get it flavored. With oil, I always use extra virgin. Since I started substituting things I have noticed a lot of changes in my body (for one my hair stopped falling out!). Some of the dishes are a little different than the normal ones, but all it takes is a little experimenting and adjustments to the measurements to get them tasting like normal. There is a website that I use called iherb.com to order all of these ingredients plus a lot more. You can even get healthy chocolate! Hehe. You should check it out, shipping is free in the US and if you use the code ZUG220 when you checkout your shopping cart, you get an 8 dollar discount this month only (otherwise 5 dollar discount). Its really worth looking into. Hope all is well, and if I might add, your daughter is freakin adorable! I so want to steal her for myself. Hehe
ReplyDeleteBtw, this is Lene. heheh I forgot to say that up in that ginormous comment :P
DeleteHi Lene!
DeleteBrady is a little bit of a health nut so when we got married I started making small gradual changes. I enjoy trying to figure out ways to make a recipe a little bit healthier. We have liquid stevia but the first couple times I used it were epic failures so I stopped trying.
I do use almond flour occasionally but still not all the time. We're pretty healthy eaters, contrary to my blog posts. :) Lots of organic fruits and veggies. No bread (other than the occasional loaf of banana) and very little dairy.
Thanks for the tip on the website I will definitely check it out. If you have any recommendations on substituting with stevia I would welcome them. Is there a stevia to sugar ratio?
The first time I used stevia was an epic fail as well... hehe. It happens to everyone I think. Then I found this website http://www.ehow.com/how_5147005_use-stevia.html. It explains a little better the ratio better sugar and stevia. The only downside in my opinion is when you are baking with a recipe that requires large amounts of sugar because you won't have nearly as much mass when you use stevia, but there are ways of correcting that if you use a little normal sugar and a little stevia and things like that.
DeleteWhen you guys started eating healthy, was there any noticable improvement in regard to your autoimmune disease? I have a couple friends that also have different autoimmune diseases and we are always comparing what works best for us, so if you have any special tips that have worked for you, I'm all ears :)
Fabulous! Thank you so much! I will try again this week!
DeleteI wish I could say that I did but I don't know because a month after I began to change my diet I got pregnant and that sent my autoimmune disease into a tizzy. My thyroid level is still fluctuating. I do know that a couple months into pregnancy my hair stopped falling out but when Avey turned 3 months old it started falling out again.