If you haven’t ventured beyond the traditional construction of a basic banana bread, with all that butter – it’s time to see what all the fuss is about. Instead of butter, there are a variety of ingredients you can mix and match to cut back or completely out, on the butter. Coconut oil, canola oil, applesauce or fruit purée, mashed avocado, and in this case, olive oil and plain yogurt, provide the moist richness that we rely on butter to bring.
And when you wrap your head around the fact that every cup of butter rings in at over 1600 calories and a whopping 184 grams of fat, you may be easier to convince. So in the spirit of taking a walk on the milder side, check out this upscale version of banana bread with olive oil, plain yogurt and with oh-so-very-good-for-you chia seeds and dried cranberries showing up at last call.
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1. Load all the wet ingredients in the food processor or blender and give it a whiz.
2. Sift all the dry ingredients together into a medium-sized bowl.
3. Just thought I’d point out that when you go for whole grain flours, there’s usually a little left that won’t make it through the strainer, so just dump it in.
4. Add the wet to the dry.
5. Mix until just combined – I mean it.
6. You will give it a few more turns when you fold in your add-ins, so don’t worry about a few streaks of flour.
7. See? No more streaks.
8. Get it into your loaf pan and get it in the oven.
9. Close to an hour later.
10. Allow it to cool before digging in.
11. Digging in!
banana bread with olive oil, cranberries & chia seeds
yield 1 loaf
1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Grease a 9″x5″ loaf pan and set aside. In a blender or food processor put the following and whiz for 20-30 seconds:
- 2 eggs
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 3 very ripe bananas
- 1/4 cup plain yogurt
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
2. In a medium-sized bowl sift the following:
- 2 cups flour, whole-wheat &/or all-purpose
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. salt
3. Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and stir until just combined.
4. Fold in the following and load the batter into the prepared pan:
- 1/2-1 cup dried cranberries
- 1/4 cup chia seeds
5. Bake for 50-60 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Allow to cook on a wire rack before removing from the pan. Slice and serve.
get creative
An endless variety of additions can be added before the baking:
- chocolate chips
- toasted nuts and or/seeds
- dried fruit, raisins, cranberries
- grated carrots or zucchini
- coconut flakes or chunks
- a shot of espresso coffee
- a shot of rum or brandy
- various spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, cayenne
- cocoa powder
- citrus zest
- flavour extracts
- oatmeal crisp topping
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