Fashionably M.French: Protein Banana Bread

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Protein Banana Bread



Well, it's happened again. As it's been a while since my last recipe and I was going through some pretty severe baking withdrawals, I decided to do some experimenting. Banana bread has always been one of my favorites. You can have banana bread for breakfast. You can have banana bread for a snack. You can have banana bread for dessert with a little cup of tea. It is basically the king of all (sweet) breads. 

While I do love banana bread, I sometimes feel a little guilty after chowing down on a big slice. Traditional banana bread recipes have a lot of sugar and butter. So what I've done is take this recipe from Pinch of Yum (one of my all-time favorite food bloggers) and I have made it my own- I replaced the butter with olive oil + swapped some of the flour for protein powder. Now I will admit that these changes made the bread a little dry in comparison to traditional banana bread. But overall, it was a delicious success! 




Let's talk protein powder for a minute. There are so many out there that it is virtually impossible for me to know if your specific protein powder will react the same when baked. From what I found in my research, whey protein powder is the best for baking. Something to bear in mind is that if you decide to add more protein powder, you will need to add some sort of liquid to balance it out. When you use too much whey in a recipe the result is a rubbery, chewy mess. Not good. You can avoid this by making sure the amount of protein only makes up about 1/4 of your batter. This might not seem like enough protein, but in my mind it was just enough to get rid of the "banana bread guilt" in the morning.




Now, you're probably asking yourself "Why would anyone in their right mind use olive oil instead of butter?!". And normally I would agree with you. I was the kid who ate butter right off of the tray. Trust me when I say I love butter. Whenever Golan and I get butter, we get a higher quality Irish butter and it is amazing. But when I sat down to create this recipe, we had enough butter for about half a slice of banana bread. We did, however, have plenty of olive oil. If you have never baked with olive oil- try it. In every recipe I have used it in, the result was a fluffy and delicious baked good. It didn't mess with the texture much and it didn't leave an overpowering olive oil taste either. You can find a handy-dandy conversion chart here. Plus, olive oil has about 25 percent less fat (non of which is saturated) than butter and has zero cholesterol. Win, win in my book.




Now that I've covered all of the technical stuff, can we all just take a moment to appreciate the fact that this photo of the batter is just screaming "fall"? If you are in fall fever like me then this recipe will be perfect for you. Cinnamon, walnuts, vanilla, warm bread? What more could you need?

Now without further ado, the goods...


Protein Banana Bread Recipe
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Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 35 minutes

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Ingredients:

- 2 large very ripe bananas
- 1/4 cup milk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 2 scoops whey protein powder (roughly 60g)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1/4 crushed walnuts
- cinnamon to taste

Instructions: 

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
  2. In a separate bowl, mash bananas and combine milk and vanilla. Set aside.
  3. In a large bowl, mix flour, protein powder, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon. Set aside.
  4. In a small bowl, mix olive oil and sugar. Add eggs and beat well. This mixture will be much more of a liquid than what you may be used to because of the olive oil. Don't worry, it's meant to be that way.
  5. Slowly incorporate each of the small mixtures into the large bowl with the dry ingredients. You can use an electric mixer if you'd like but hand mixing works just as well.
  6. Add crushed walnuts
  7. Spray your pan with olive oil to prevent stick. You can use butter here or another type of oil if you prefer. 
  8. Bake for 35 minutes. Watch for a nicely browned, springy top. 




Now you have a delicious, "guilt free" breakfast treat to enjoy all week long. If you are looking for more breakfast options that don't taste or feel like breakfast then check out my Five Ingredient Breakfast Cookies. They are vegan, clean and can be eaten like candy. 

Have you ever baked using olive oil? Let me know in the comments- whether it worked for you or it didn't, I want to know! If you decide to give this recipe a try, be sure to take a photo and tag me on Instagram (@fashionablymfrench) and Twitter (@meagan_french). 

3 comments:

  1. CANNOT WAIT to try Megs! Saturday morning breakfast for sure! Thank you for figuring out the hard stuff so that we can just bake and enjoy!

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