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What's Cookin Wednesday - Banana Bread

Sometimes, somehow - I have tons of bananas in my freezer.  I think this stems from the fact that I don't like bananas AT ALL if they have brown marks on them.  Just past green is my ideal ripeness!  So I went looking for a banana bread that was different from others I've made and this one made itself know :-)


Ingredients
1 cup dried fruits
1 1/2 cup of apple juice
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking sodea
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup of light brown sugar
4 Tbs unsalted butter, melted
2 medium bananas
3 Tbs of plain yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 egg whites
1/2 cup of chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven at 350F.  Place dried fruits in a small bowl, add juice, close the bowl with a lid and microwave for 30 seconds.  Once the time is up, without disturbing the dried fruits, set the bowl aside for 15 minutes.  The dried fruits will drink up most of the moisture.

In a medium bowl mix together flour, baking powder and baking soda.  Set aside

Place bananas, yogurt, vanilla extract and egg whites in the blender and puree everything for 10 seconds.

In a separate bowl whisk together melted butter and light brown sugar until well incorporated.  Add the banana mixture and whisk some more.

Carefully add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and mix with a spoon just until incorporated.

Drain the juice under the fruits and add 1/2 of them to the batter.  Add half of the chopped walnuts too.

Line a parchment paper on the bottom of a spring form pan and pour the batter in.  Decorate the top with the reamining fruits and with the rest of the walnuts.

Bake the cake in the middle of the oven for 45 minutes or until it turns pleasantly brown.  Cool for 15 minutes and un-mold from the spring form pan.  Completely cooled cake can be dusted with confectioners sugar.

I skipped the walnuts (not a fan) and yogurt (thought I had and didn't!).  Used two flavors of Craisins as that's what I had on hand.  I also used a regular loaf pan.  While this bread was done (clean toothpick!) it had a wet look.  I didn't find this to affect the taste :-)

I enjoyed the bread, but probably wouldn't make again.  The banana flavor didn't come through and the bread.


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