Simply Banana Bread

November 4th, 2012 | Posted by Alison Spath in Breakfast

Last week I spent some time staring at overripe bananas.

Ripe Bananas for Banana Bread

Not these exact bananas. These bananas are actors. This is a re-enactment of the overripe bananas that kept giving me the stink eye early last week, waiting to see what I was going to with them.

(This also means that I’m still staring at overripe bananas.)

I didn’t feel like adding these to the existing frozen banana stash I’ve got going in the freezer, so I opted to turn overripe bananas into banana bread instead of a pureed, cold treat like banana whip or a chocolate banana smoothie.

There’s nothing overly special about this banana bread, but I did sub coconut oil for butter (optional) and used less sugar. I didn’t want to get fancy, I didn’t want to re-invent the wheel, I just wanted banana bread, plain and simple. Feel free to add 1/4 c of walnuts or pecans, skip them if you’re feeding kids who won’t eat bake goods with nuts in them.

Kids can be nuts like that.

I went digging around the interwebs to find a couple of banana bread recipes and then patched together my own. I knew from making pumpkin muffins a couple weeks ago that I could get away with a 1/2 c of sugar (as opposed to 1 cup, which most recipes called for) and wanted to use coconut oil instead of butter or canola oil. I conquered both of these goals with good results!

Simply Banana Bread (with less sugar and coconut oil)

Print this recipe!

1/4 c coconut oil, melted (or softened butter)
1/2 c sugar
2 – 3 very ripe bananas, mashed
1 egg, beaten
2 c flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
dash of cinnamon
pinch of salt (if using unsalted butter or coconut oil)
1/4 c milk (if necessary, my batter was very thick!)

Preheat oven to 375. Combine coconut oil (or butter) with sugar. Stir in beaten egg and mashed bananas. Sift or whisk together dry ingredients, slowly add to wet ingredients and pour into bread pan or muffin tins. (Lightly oiled.)

Bake muffins for 22 – 24 minutes, bread will take closer to 35 minutes.

I used a 1/3 c measure to scoop batter into muffin tins, this made 9 muffins.

Nine Muffins

The nutritional run down:

Banana Muffins Nutritional Stats

I made these dark and early one morning while everyone was still snoozing, they were ready just in time for breakfast. Served with a side of Yahtzee, our favorite new thing to do at the kitchen table.

Math Lesson

This is not a re-enactment.

Banana Muffin Yahtzee

Did you know that Yahtzee is a fantastic way to help your kids get faster with some basic addition and multiplication? Wanting to know if your score beats your mom’s, sister’s or dad’s score is quite the motivator.

We’ve been enjoying these for the past few days, I had one with some almond butter this morning about an hour before I set out for a run.

Banana Muffin with Almond Butter

If I run first thing in the morning, I typically go on an empty stomach. I didn’t leave today until after 11, this turned out to be the perfect fuel for a leisurely Sunday morning run (in the snow!)

I’ve got two overripe bananas that are telling me I’ll be re-enacting these muffins again very soon.


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