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Bubby's Banana Bread (healthified a wee bit!)

My mother-in-law and Big A love to bake together.  The recipe they make most often is chocolate chip banana bread.  Big A begged her to write down the recipe so she could make it at home.  With a bunch of over-ripe bananas sitting on our kitchen attracting fruit flies, I thought it was the perfect time for us to bake up her favorite.

She has become quite adept at mashing bananas, cracking eggs, pouring oil and vanilla, and whisking batter.  Little A wanted to help too, but we limited her responsibilities to adding the chocolate chips.  The kid still has a knack to make the most gigantic messes!

We agreed to make one heart-shaped loaf to give to my mother-in-law, and filled 4 additional mini loaf tins with the remaining batter.  They were supposed to be one for each of us, the girls devoured theirs, and Adam ate his AND mine too.  I'll forgive him, I know he can't resist anything with chocolate.

I am particularly pleased that this turned out to be such a big hit with everyone because I made several modifications to the original recipe to make it a bit healthier, and no one noticed the difference. You won't believe how light, sweet and fluffy this bread is, even though I use less sweetener and all whole grain flour.  Score!

Bubby's Banana Bread (healthified)

4 small or 3 large, very ripe bananas, mashed
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup coconut sugar (original called for 1 cup white sugar)
3 egg whites (original called for 1 egg + 1white)
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup non-fat yogurt (I used non-fat, sugar-free vanilla)
2 cups kamut flour (original called for 1 cup white/1 cup whole-wheat)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
Few pinches fresh ground nutmeg (my addition)
1/2 cup dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325F.  In a large bowl, beat together bananas, oil, sugar, egg whites and vanilla.  Whisk in yogurt.  In a smaller bowl, whisk together dry ingredients.  Dump dry into wet, add chips and stir, just until mixed.  Scrape into 9x12 loaf pan and bake for 50-60 minutes (or some smaller pans like I did and bake for 30 minutes or so until a toothpick comes out clean).

Even my father-in-law loved this recipe, and he's typically not a big banana bread fan...nor is he much of a fan of healthy food in general.  So if you have hard to please folks in your family who are used to white flour/highly processed baked goods, this recipe is a good place to start getting them moving towards healthier options!

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