I recently found the Cook This Not That book at my local library. This book is filled with 350 (or less) calorie recipes alternative to the full fat favorite recipes like fried chicken, pasta, and cookies. All the recipes seem simple enough and often have a few ingredients and steps. Each recipe is compared to a high calorie counterpart. It’s a shock to see how high in fat and calories some of my favorite foods can be.
Today, I choose to make banana bread. There is something about the smell of fresh bread that makes the house feel more homey. This banana bread recipe was simple to make and OH-SO yummy! One downside to this recipe book is that I have no clue what the serving size that correlate to the calorie count. This banana bread (I’m sure not the whole bread loaf) is only 350 calories, 12 grams of fat (4.5 grams saturated fat), and 27 grams of sugar. The cost per servings (makes 4 servings) cost about $0.96 USD. The recipe is compared to a $2.16 USD slice of a Starbucks Banana nut loaf. The Starbucks slice has 490 calories, 19 grams of fat (2.5 grams of saturated fat), and 46 grams of sugar.
Let’s get to the bread making!
You’ll Need:
- a 9″ x 5″ x 3″ loaf pan (I didn’t have a loaf pan, so I used a 9″ round cake pan)
- A mixer
- Wooden spoon or spatula
- Knife
- A bowl
- oven
Ingredients:
- 4 very ripe bananas, about 2 cups (I used apple bananas, because they tend to be sweeter)
- 1/2 cup Greek yogurt
- 4 Tbsp butter, melted
- 2 Large eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups flour (I used whole wheat flour. No one could tell the difference)
- 3/4 cup sugar (I used brown sugar)
- 1/2 cup toasted walnuts, coarsely chopped
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp salt
Let’s get started!
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease up your pan with butter. I used Wilton Bake Easy Non-Stick Spray. This is the best thing ever. If I didn’t have this spray or my mixer, I would NEVER bake. This two things made baking so much easier.
Combine the mashed bananas, yogurt, butter, eggs, and vanilla extract in a large mixing bowl and stir until combine. In a separate bowl, mix all the dry ingredients, the flour, sugar, walnuts, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Gently fold the dry ingreadients into the wet banana mixture. Stir until all is combined.
All mixed up!
The batter should look something like this. It’s texture is lumpy and a little in between a liquid and a solid. The smell is intoxicating. The ripe bananas and cinnamon is a great combination.
Even though I didn’t use a loaf pan, it still tasted fine. Besides a loaf pan or round pan, I would use a muffin pan or a square pan…anything really. Put it in the oven and bake it on the low oven rack for about 50 minutes. I checked mines at 30 minutes, but in total it took about 45 minutes to bake completely. After the pan is out of the oven, let it rest for 5 minutes before taking it out of the pan or eating it.
The finish product!
The bread was super moist and doesn’t taste diet-y whatsoever. If you put this bread next to the Starbucks’ bread, I bet you would NEVER guess that the bread I made was whole wheat, healthier, and cheaper. Try it!
Looks so good! I only tried making banana bread once, when I had bananas that were too mushy already to use for anything else haha. But I totally burnt the bottom
@Tiera: I hate when bananas go too ripe. It happens so fast and out of nowhere, but maybe I’m just not paying attention. Awe, I feel bad that your banana bread was burnt on the bottom. I hate when that happens. I’m not too sure, but I know there is a cookie sheet where you can never burn the bottom. It has something to do with the air circulation or something like that. Maybe they make one for loaf pans too.
I just went all Homer Simpson drooly on here. Banana breaaadddd. nom nom nom. Dang, now I have to see if I can fit this into my ridiculous schedule cuz I can’t live without banana bread. Could you pass me the mop? It would be rude of me to leave this puddle of drool here. Other visitors might slip in it, then there’d be law suits, and it’d just be an ugly mess.
@Rachel: “Mop at aisle 4″ LOL You should try the recipe. It’s so simple and easy. I wouldn’t know what oven range you would put it in. I know in the UK it’s a little different. Well, anytime I watch Nigella Bites on YouTube (one of my favorite cooking shows), she is always saying “Range Marker 4″.
I LOVE BANANA BREAD! It’s great to bake at home b.c of the enormous amounts of sugar in packaged stuff. YIKES! Did you tweak this recipe or use it straight out of the book?
@Lisa: I didn’t tweak the recipe at all. So, everything that is on this post was taken right out of the book. Try it out. I was really surprised how much I love this recipe. I’m going to make it again, because my mom is a huge fan of this bread. Let me know how it goes!
just toss those bananas in the freezer when they start turning and you can use them anytime you want to make bread. I made a Hawaiian banana bread the other day using pineapple, macadamia nuts and coconut in addition to the bananas. I don’t think it was as good for me as yours
@SanClementeJedi: I might be bias, but I think your bread sound much better than mines! I love Mac Nuts. I should’ve used that instead of walnuts. That sounds so yummy, I’m going to try that next time. Great idea! Almost genius, if you ask em.
What I really like about the eat this not that books is they are so visual and it promotes eating (vs eating very little). Really is a quick tutorial on bettter choices,with pictures. Sounds yummy and yeah mac nuts would be ono too. (we have a tree in our yard which I think is cool but bad for dogs) I throw my ripey bananas in the freezer and use for shakeology (which reminds me I need to go back to green and protein drinks again).
@Tania: I agree. I really love the layout of the “Eat This, Not That” books. I also like the size of it. It’s not too big or small…just perfect.
How do you like the shakeology? I’ve always wanted to try, but it’s kinda pricey for my student budget. Does it really taste good? I hate chalky tasting shakes.