BRILLIANT BANANA BREAD

The first time I made this recipe was for a charity event at work and I have to say all 20 slices disappeared in minutes!

Although the end product of this recipe looks like a loaf of bread (if you use a loaf shaped baking tray), the texture is more cake-like as it’s sweet and moist. Nevertheless it is scrumptious and the way I have adapted this recipe has made it much healthier than traditional recipes.

To make this healthier I substituted the butter for low fat natural yoghurt and reduced the quantity of sugar, as I feel the bananas add their natural sweetness. Although I used 50g brown sugar, you could eliminate completely. I have tried both with and without sugar, and the end result is just as delicious without sugar. If you wanted to increase the protein content you could substitute the yoghurt for Greek yoghurt, quark or fromage frais.

The best part about this recipe (apart from being extremely scrumptious!) is that a slice ~30g will only set you back ~50kcal!

	Kcal	Carbs (g)	Protein (g)	Fat (g)
30g	51.8	8.8	2.6	0.9
100g	172.7	29.3	8.6	3

 *Nutritional value including 50g of sugar.

INGREDIENTS

200g flour

180g low fat natural yoghurt

50 g sugar (optional)*

2 bananas

2 eggs

2 tsp of cinnamon

2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon of nutmeg

1teaspoon vanilla flavouring

1 teaspoon desiccated coconut

METHOD

1. Mash the bananas (I used a potato masher but you could use a fork). I prefer mashing rather than blending so you end up with small banana pieces.

2. Mix the yoghurt, eggs, sugar and vanilla flavour with the mashed bananas.

3. Mix the dry ingredients (flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and baking powder).

4. Combine the dry mixture with the wet mixture.

5. Pour into a cake baking tray (I used a rectangular silicone mould).

6. Sprinkle over the desiccated coconut.

7. Bake in the oven for approximately 45mins at 150C.

8. Remove from the oven and leave to cool (it is cooked when you insert a skewer or knife and it stays clean, i.e. no mixture stuck to the blade).

I left mine to cool for 5 mins before removing from the mould. After removing it leave to cool on a wire wrack.

*The banana bread can be served warm or cold, on its own or accompanied with a tablespoon of yoghurt and/or slices of banana or other fruit.

**You could also add walnuts into the mixture before baking and/or other dried fruit/nuts – even some berries. You could also sprinkle flaked almonds on top instead of coconut. Please note if you add dried fruit such as nuts this will alter the nutritional value and increase the Kcal and fat content.

Tip: Have as a mid afternoon snack, as a pre workout snack or as desert.  This recipe can also be frozen – once you have sliced the loaf wrap them individually in cling film, you then defrost as and when needed for a healthy snack or for future dessert.

*Bon Appetite* :)