Me, baking?!? What's the occasion?

Well, there isn't one. I was just given several bananas today, and I can only eat so many. Usually in the summer I like to peel them, wrap them in tin foil and freeze the over ripe ones to use in smoothies. Mmmm... But it's not great smoothie weather to me now, so I thought I'd try my hand at making banana bread. Now, those of you who know me well, know that I have never baked any type of bread ever in my life, so of course I didn't have a bread loaf pan or half the ingredients, but I did have bananas, so I thought I'd go out on a limb and give it a try.


I found the recipe on myrecipes.com. It looked less complicated than the other ones I'd looked at and it was "lite" so I thought that was a plus. I printed out the recipe, went to the store to get the pan and ingredients I needed, and commenced baking after going to vote (where there was no line at all) and to yoga class. Oh, and 1 more thing, I read the reviews too and added a little more banana and a tsp of vanilla as suggested on one of the comments. I also had mentioned to someone (who's been to cooking school) that I was going to make this banana bread and he gave me a secret little tip. I'll share it with you... He said to add a tiny pinch of pepper to the dry ingredients and mix it up well before adding it to the wet ingredients. The pepper will enhance the good flavors in the bread and make the flavor burst in your mouth - but be careful you don't use a big pinch, just a tiny pinch. He also suggested adding a little apple sauce to the banana mixture (use the 2 bananas and and the apple sauce to make up a whole cup). Also you could substitute Splenda for the sugar if you want to make it even more low-fat. (but I didn't do that this time)

Here's the recipe I used (including my additions) if you want to try it. It was actually pretty easy (time consuming, but not too hard) and good too.

Ingredients
1 cup sugar
1 (8-ounce) package fat-free cream cheese
1 cup mashed ripe banana (about 2 medium bananas plus a little apple sauce)
1 tsp. vanilla
2 large eggs
2 cups reduced-fat baking mix (such as Bisquick - with a tiny pinch of pepper)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Cooking spray

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°.
Place sugar and cream cheese in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add banana and eggs; beat until well blended. Add the baking mix and walnuts, and stir just until moist.
Pour batter into a 9-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray; bake at 350° for 45 minutes. Tent bread with foil, and bake an additional 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

Nutritional Information
Calories: 161 (24% from fat)
Fat: 4.3g (sat 0.8g,mono 0.6g,poly 1.9g)
Protein: 4.6g
Carbohydrates: 26.7g
Fiber: 0.7g
Cholesterol: 28mg
Iron: 0.8mg
Sodium: 260mg
Calcium: 49mg

Yield
16 servings (serving size: 1 slice)

(Taken from Cooking Light, MAY 2003)

Well, I'm off to enjoy another slice of fresh, homemade (by me!!) banana bread. Happy fall baking, everyone!

Edited on 11/5/08 to add that I gave this recipe to a friend of mine yesterday and she made this last night too. She didn't add the apple sauce like I did, but used a 3rd banana instead, and she made it sugar free with Splenda, as well as cholesterol free with better 'n eggs instead of real eggs. I tasted a little of it this morning, and although it was different tasting than mine, it was really good too!