Spiced Banana Bread with Chocolate Bits

Sadly no photo of my banana bread, forgot to take one :(!

It was 9PM on a workday and was just feeling restless and so decided to bake! I had two bananas that had ripened and needed to be eaten up rather soon, so banana bread it was.

I started with a recipe and soon realized that I completely decided not to follow it! This time my mission was to make a version that was relatively healthy and with a bit of extra spice and of course some dark chocolate! 🙂 To add nutritional value, I decided to use soya flour and be stingy with my use of sugar and butter.

I recently learned that soya flour can be used in baking for extra protein by simply replacing about a 1/5 of flour ingredient with soya flour for non-yeast raised products. Because baked products containing soy flour tend to brown more quickly, I had to the lower the temperature just slightly.

This healthy baking experiment was a success as it was enjoyed by all my work colleagues! 🙂

Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes

Ingredients:
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp of cinnamon
2 bananas, mashed
1 cup plain/all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup soya flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup small chunks of dark chocolate (80% cocoa)

1. In a mixing bowl, cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Next beat in eggs, vanilla, cinnamon and bananas until well blended.
2. Combine the flours, baking soda and salt and add to creamed mixture and stir just until combined. Fold in chocolate bits.
3. Spoon into a greased loaf pan. Bake at 170C/ 340F for about 55-60 minutes. Cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.