Banana Bread that Works!

Sometimes, making banana bread is difficult. Even after cooking it for an hour, the center can be runny and uncooked. For a while I thought it was my oven, which it may have been. However, I recently came across a wonderful recipe on Anna's site...yes, she cooks things other than cookies! I made this a couple of weekends ago when I went home to see my parents and just made another loaf here with whole wheat flour. Both of them worked well. The whole wheat version wasn't quite as light in texture but wasn't overly "wheaty." Surprisingly, this is very similar in taste and texture to those very sugary and buttery version; however, it has less than 1 cup of sugar and only 1 tablespoon of oil. Wow! I HIGHLY recommend it and will probably use it as my go to recipe (along with my grandmother's) unless I find a good looking new one.

Low Fat Banana Bread (adapted from Epicurious)

1 3/4 cups flour (7.7 ounces) - all purpose OR while wheat (I was light handed when using the whole wheat flour)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 ripe bananas — smashed or pureed in processor
1/3 cup buttermilk (or milk but buttermilk is better!)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325°F. Spray a 9×5 inch metal loaf pan with flour-added cooking spray.

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; set aside.

Beat eggs and sugar with an electric mixer until fluffy and light (about 5 minutes). Mix in smashed bananas, buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Add flour mixture to banana mixture and stir just until blended. Transfer batter to prepared pan.

Bake bread until golden brown on top and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Turn bread out onto rack and cool.

Makes 1 loaf.