Peanut Butter Banana Bread

I haven’t bought very many cookbooks since you can find so much online for free! and because my mom has always had some good ones that I could use as resources. But there are a few books that I have been hoping to get my hands on for a while, one being Mark Bittman’s How To Cook Everything. 

Last Friday I was checking out one of my favorite used bookstores during my lunch break and saw the book sitting there and I quickly grabbed it and got it for a bargain! I walked with the massive text back and forth from work, carrying it like a prize. When I got home I dug right in and have been obsessing over it ever since.

This post should therefore be a recipe from HTCE but I had already planned to make Peanut Banana Bread earlier in the week so I decided to stay with my original idea and bake the bread.

And I am glad I did. It made for the perfect Sunday morning–enjoying some toasted banana bread with a dab of butter on top, drinking some coffee and reading about making tomato sauce. I’m learning so much about food, cooking and the like and I am loving it. I know cookbooks aren’t the most exciting thing in the world but to me, eating really awesome food is, so I am looking forward to the payoff of all of my new food knowledge courtesy of Mark Bittman.

Recipe from Joy the Baker. I omitted the flaxseed meal in her recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas
• 1/3 cup plain or vanilla fat free yogurt
• 1/3 cup creamy all-natural peanut butter
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/4 cup chopped dry roasted peanuts

Directions:

Place rack in the center of the oven at 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9 by 5 inch loaf pan and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together flours, baking soda, salt, ground cinnamon and ground allspice.

In a medium bowl, whisk together  mashed bananas, yogurt, peanut butter and melted butter.  Whisk in eggs and sugars.  Blend mixture until no sugar lumps remain.

Pour the wet mixture into the larger bowl with the dry ingredients.  Fold together with a spatula until no more flour bits remain.  Fold in the chopped nuts as well.  Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan and cake for 55 to 65 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the pan for 20 minutes before running a butter knife along the edges of the pan and inverting the bread onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Bread lasts at room temperature for up to 4 days.