Nutty Maple Banana Bread Recipe

When I lived in my first apartment in the city, my three roommates had the sorriest kitchen I'd ever seen. I'd been in frat houses with better collections of cookware and kept more groceries in my college dorm room than they did in their refrigerator. Since I had moved in to replace the soon-to-be-engaged roommate number 4, I didn't bring any of my kitchen goodies with me when I loaded my bedroom furniture and clothing into the already cluttered apartment.

So, I made do with their two saucepans, one skillet and a 13 x 9 baking pan that was so darkened with age and grease that no food cooked inside of it escaped without being burned on at least one side.

But the one thing they did have was a decent loaf pan.

So among a few other culinary delights that I developed there - like grilled cheese on the George Foreman - I baked a lot of banana bread.

Now that I have my own kitchen and some bright and shiny baking pans, I still bake banana bread whenever I have some overrripe bananas in the basket on the counter. And I had always thought that I made pretty good banana bread until the night that I made really good banana bread.

Nutty Maple Banana Bread

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup light packed brown sugar
2 large bananas, sliced
2 Tbsp. maple syrup
1 3/4 cup flour
2 egg whites
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Spray pan with cooking spray.

2. Cream together applesauce and sugar in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, and salt.

3. To the wet ingredients, add two large, sliced bananas and 2 Tbsp. maple syrup. Mix well with hand mixer on medium speed until bananas are well blended and only few visible chunks remain. Add egg whites and blend thoroughly.

4. Mix together, slowly adding flour mixture, beating on low speed until smooth. Stir in nuts and pour into prepared loaf pan.

5. Bake at 350F for 45 minutes (depending on your oven you may need to bake up to an hour).

Yield: 8 thick slices.

Comments

[Pearl]

mmmm sounds so good! i made banana muffins the other day with applesauce, too. it was delish!

[Lydia (The Perfect Pantry)]

My Canadian husband would say that the maple syrup made all the difference! This does look like very good banana bread.

[kat]

Banana Bread is always so good!

[Debbie Davis]

Mmmmmmmmm.......... Looks yummy! I love banana bread!

[grace]

nearly perfect banana bread is quite the silver lining to your kitchen woes. i'm glad you weren't living with complete neanderthals. :)

[Hayley]

This look delish...I just made zucchini bread this morning for breakfast. Looks like we're on the same wave length.

[Anna]

I love banana bread! Thanks for the recipe!

[Jude]

I can't wait for bananas to overripe just for banana bread. Looks so nice and moist.

[Liz]

I'm always in search of a new banana bread. One can never have enough recipes for all those over-ripe bananas! Your recipe looks awesome. What would happen if you used two whole eggs vs. just the whites? Hmmmm. I'm curious.

[Emily]

Your bread looks delectable!

[lisa (dandysugar)]

Sounds delicious, Maris! There's always another way to make this yummy bread! So moist! Great job!

[Gudrun of Kitchen Gadget Girl]

sounds like a great combo! Wish I had some brown bananas ready to go, I would make this today....

Happy Holidays!

[Erica]

Great blog! I love banana bread and all of the varieties. I've made a marble (chocolate) banana bread and am giving a coconut version a try this week. Happy 100th post ;)

[Kevin]

I like the use of maple in the banana bread.

[Sophie]

I just love different recipes of banana bread. Your version looks great!! MMMMM....