Healthy Banana Bread Makeover
January 8, 2010 by JenniferM
Filed under Baked Goods
Many of you who are regulars here may remember the Healthy Banana Bread recipe I posted here back in 2008. Well, thanks to Tiffany at The Gracious Pantry for some tips on using agave nectar to replace the organic sugar and Nicole at Delicious Wisdom for introducing me to whole wheat pastry flour in her Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies recipe, I can make my Healthy Banana Bread even healthier!
The ingredients to be swapped out are:
- All-purpose flour for whole wheat pastry flour
- Regular salt for sea salt (and less of it)
- Organic sugar cane crystals for agave nectar
Here is the new and improved Healthy Banana Bread recipe:
Ingredients:
- Nonstick cooking spray
- 1 1/2 c. whole wheat pastry flour
- 1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 2 slightly beaten egg whites
- 1 c. mashed ripe bananas (3 medium or 2 large)
- 1/2 c. agave nectar
- 1/4 c. canola oil
- A pinch of sea salt (1/16 tsp.)
Directions:
- Coat an 8×4x2-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside. Mash bananas and set aside. In a medium bowl combine whole wheat pastry flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and sea salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl combine egg whites, banana, agave nectar, and oil. Once mixed well, add flour mixture all at one time to banana mixture. Stir until moistened. The batter should be lumpy. Spoon mixture into pan.
- Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 to 50 minutes. Test doneness by inserting a wooden toothpick near the center of the bread. The toothpick should come out clean.
- Cool in pan on a wire rack for approximately 10 minutes. Remove bread from pan and cool completely on the wire rack.
Enjoy!
I just made this and my husband and I both scarfed down 2 pieces. Warm and yummy!!
Awesome, Sarah! I’ve got some in the oven right now – can’t wait!
Now THAT’s my kind of banana bread! I’ll give it a try very soon.
BTW, love the new blog design! Very easy to use!
This sounds delicious> Do you have the nutritional info?
I made this today & it was spectacular! It far exceeded my expectations for a recipe this simple. Thank you for this (& for the rest of the site, I must add. I visit constantly).
This sounds delicious! I am so thankful to have found your website, it is full of great info for a newbie clean eater!
I really like how you have included sea salt for better healt results. The older recipe was great, but this one really takes it by far. I will be making it tonight for my kids as well. Thanks!
I made this tonight – so good! But I added some chocolate
Nutritional analysis for 1/12 of the loaf – assuming you can slice it 12 times & eat only that!! Using SparkPeople’s nutritional analysis & subsituting papaya nectar for agave (they didn’t have agava nectar listed on their database):
Cal – 112; Total fat – 4.7g; sat fat – 0.4g; polyunsat fat – 1.4g; monunsat fat – 2.7g; Cholesterol- 0; sodium – 125.3mg; potassium – 79mg; total carb – 16.8g; fibre – 2.2g; sugars – 3.8g; protein – 2.9g.
Oh my gooodness this is the best whole wheat banana bread that I’ve ever tasted!!!! I added two scoops of flax seed and unsweetened coconut for a little fun. Way to go!
This is phenomenal banana bread! My 6 year old loved it. I used 3/4 spelt and 3/4 whole wheat flour, because that’s what I had on hand. Added some walnuts, too. I only made it to 12 slices, so that would be about 200 cals per slice, with the added walnuts. Still not bad!
I meant 8 slices!
Hi Leigh, thanks for commenting and glad you and especially your six-year-old liked it!
I wonder if we can reduce the canola oil by half and substitute it with apple sauce?
Hi Kristine,
I definitely think it would work. I have made banana bread before and used apple sauce in place of oil and it worked out great, but I was using sugar can crystals and not agave nectar. You could try half and half at first to see if you may need to up the agave nectar (I doubt it, but you never know). Good luck and be sure to let us know how it turns out!
Don’t mean to be a buzzkill but everyone should do research on agave. It is just as bad if not worse than HFCS. I was able to pinpoint my skyrocketing cholesterol recently with agave. I had been baking quite a bit with it. B/c in the body it’s seen the same as honey or HFCS (it may come from a plant but it’s heavily processed). I took it out of my diet completely thinking it was the only thing I had introduced into my system in the last year that was totally new. Sure enough, 3 months after I removed it, my cholesterol is back to normal. I am incredulous but there you have it. So, all I am saying is to be careful. Alternatives I am looking at are Coconut palm sugar (to make into a syrup for a liquid sugar) and yacon syrup.
Hi Conch,
I am so glad you posted your comment because it reminded me of the research I need to do.
I actually just read, like last week, an article by Jonny Bowden about how HCFS isn’t all “that,” and it’s all been marketing hype (and look how it has worked!).
Actually, here’s the article that made me write this down on my research to-do list: http://jonnybowdenblog.com/the-truth-about-agave-nectar-it%E2%80%99s-all-hype/
Be sure to read the comments section on his article as he does talk about some alternative sweeteners.
I have to admit that I did fall for the “hype,” unfortunately. Maybe I should just stick with plain old table sugar. I mean what’s the difference at this point? *sigh*
I agree with not having agave. There is no regulations on the import of it, and from what I’ve researched so far, it is just as bad as High Fructose Corn Syrup. Dr. Mercola (mercola.org) has some great information on agave nectar!
Thanks Kristen, I will add Dr. M to my list of research resources!
Love the whole wheat flour. I used raw honey for the agave nectar and apple sauce for half the oil…..was delicious! For years I’ve used WW flour in lieu of white flour, even in a fresh pumpkin Bundt cake. Thanks loads!