Banana Bread is probably the most popular bread in the world, everyone has their own recipe and their own way of making it. And every now and then I keep reading about new recipes which try to make the bread as healthy as possible. After all if people eat it so much, it better be healthy right. So there are these no oil, no butter banana recipes.

Well as much as I want to try these skinny recipes, this one actually has oil. I guess once I master the regular recipe, I will try the skinnier version as well.

For this bread, I used canola oil. I prefer using oil rather than butter for making breads. The oil keeps the bread soft and moist plus the taste of butter is really not important here. Isn’t it? I mean for cookies I always use butter because you want the cookies to have that buttery taste but here the softness of the bread is more important.

And that’s also the reason why many banana bread recipes have yogurt in them. It really helps in keeping the bread moist. Bananas themselves are so full of moisture so these breads will usually turn out to be soft and moist until and unless you really overmix, in which case you will have a tough bread. Overmixing > more gluten > tough bread.

Here’s my simple recipe for making banana bread. Enjoy! 🙂

Yield: 1 loaf

Ingredients

Whole Wheat Flour: 3/4th cup

All Purpose Flour: 3/4th cup

Baking Soda: 1/2 tsp

Cinnamon Powder: 1/2 tsp

Salt: 1/4th tsp

 

Oil: 1/2 cup [I used Canola oil]

Plain Yogurt: 1/8th cup

Bananas: 3 large, ripe and mashed

Sugar: 1 cup

Egg: 1

Walnuts: 3/4th cup, chopped

Chocolate chips: 1/2 cup

 

Topping

Cinnamon Powder: 1/4th tsp

Granulated Sugar: 2 tsp

Walnuts: for garinshing

 

Method

Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray a loaf pan with nonstick spray and set aside.

1. In a bowl, whisk together both the flours, baking soda, salt and cinnamon powder, set aside.

2. With a spatula, mix together oil and sugar in a bowl till there no lumps.

3. Add in the egg and mix till it’s completely incorporated into the mixture.

4. Mash the ripe bananas and add them into the mix, give it a good whisk.

5. Add in the yogurt, mix.

6. Slowly add in the flour mix into the wet ingredients, mix till there are no flour pockets but do not overmix.

7. Slowly fold in the walnuts. I roasted the chopped walnuts in the oven for 2 minutes at 350 F. I love the flavor of the roasted nuts in the bread.

8. Now fold in the chocolate chips.

9. Transfer the batter into a loaf pan.

10. Prepare the topping by mixing the cinnamon powder with sugar.

11. Sprinkle the sugar-cinnamon mix on top of the batter. Garnish with walnuts.

12. Bake the bread at 350 F for around 65 minutes or till a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

13. Cool the bread on a wire rack and cut into slices.

Tips

1. Roast the walnuts before you add them to the batter. That’s my personal recommendation you can of course add them as it is. Walnuts can be replaced with Pecans. Yumm!

2. Use butter instead of the oil if you love the flavor of butter in your breads and muffins.

3. Adjust the sugar according to your taste. I know some people like their breads to be almost sugar free so 1 cup might be too much for them.

4. I love chocolates so I try to sneak them in every recipe. If you are not a fan of chocolates, avoid adding the choc chips in this recipe.

5. Do not overmix else you will end up with a tough bread.

6. You can use 100% all purpose flour or 100% whole wheat flour for this recipe. I used a combination of both.