Sundays are laundry, cleaning, meal prep, and baking days. The previous Saturday, I always buy green bananas intending to eat more bananas throughout the week. By Sunday, I have 3-4 that are about to go. Refusing to let any food go to waste, I freeze the bananas and use them in smoothies and banana bread. I think Cameron, the hubby, purposely doesn’t eat bananas I buy, so I am forced to bake banana bread.
Also, do you know food waste contributes to climate change? Anyone that knows me knows how passionate I am about reducing food waste. I will usually use the sour cream or yoghurt near or past its “best before” date. There’s no reason to let that go to waste, and it’s not expired. Here are some great articles about the best before and expiry dates of food and how they contribute to food waste.
There are lots of banana bread recipes out there. I’ve been making mine for so long; I don’t measure my ingredients anymore. When I was baking today, I had to write down the measurements. My recipe makes two loaves, one to eat and one for the freezer. Though, I never end up freezing my second loaf, as it’s a family favourite and never last long.
Ingredients
1 cup butter at room temperature
2 cup granulated sugar
4 eggs at room temperature
6 bananas mashed
1 cup Greek yoghurt or sour cream
1.5 teaspoon good quality vanilla extract
3 ½ cup all-purpose flour
1 ½ cup old fashioned oatmeal
1 cup of chocolate chips
1.5 teaspoon baking powder
1.5 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
Instructions
Preheat your oven to 350F. Coat 2 9x5 loaf pan with butter and line with parchment paper. In a large bowl or your stand, mixer cream together the soft butter and sugar until combined. Add your eggs, one at a time, to the mixture and mix well. Add your bananas, sour cream or yoghurt and mix until combined.
Next, add your dry ingredients to your wet ingredients, and mix until thoroughly combined. Pour the batter into your prepared pans, run a knife through the middle of the loaf to release steam, and sprinkle with some extra oatmeal.
Bake both loaves in the oven for 50 -60 minutes. Insert a toothpick or a bamboo skewer into the loaf centre; if it comes out clean, the bread is done. Remove from the oven and cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then on a cooling rack.
Enjoy!