I'M BANANAS! B.A.N.A.N.A.S!

My first recipe after referring to some absolutely scrumptious recipe from other food blogs. Which I hope I'll know how to link it to my post here later. ( I'm still try to work things out with the settings and all) Making this while jotting down the entire process at the same time is not easy. ( Can't quite stand the continuous washing of hands which kinda reminds me of the hygiene protocols in wards) Let's hope my writing is still understandable. It feels like eons since I've written something that isn't exam related.

I adore bananas. Not only for their healthy benefits and choke loads of nutrition but also their natural sweetness  that they add to the things I'm baking.This allows me to cut down on the amount of sugar used in the recipes. The bananas I'm using in this recipe just happened to be lying around on the counter top and almost nearing the edge of spotty icky ripeness that I can predict none of my family members will eat. So instead of letting it go to waste, I hauled my bum to the kitchen and came up with this moist and flavorful loaf of Banana Bread. And yes, being as health conscious as I am, this version of mine uses less sugar and oil than the normal kind.


Low Fat Banana Bread














Ingredients:
*1 cup oat flour (refer to notes)
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 Tablespoon flavorless vegetable oil ( I used canola oil)
1/4 cup yogurt ( original flavor)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 large eggs ( beaten)
1 1/4 cup mashed bananas ( use the back of a fork to mash them up)
*2 or 3 sliced bananas sprinkled in some lemon juice ( for decoration)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 C and grease a 9'x3' loaf pan.
2. Mix the oat flour, all purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a bowl.
3. In another bowl, mix sugar, vanilla, oil, yogurt, eggs and bananas until well combined.
4. Add the dry ingredients into the bowl with the wet ingredients. Stir until just moistened. There should be a few visible lumps in the thick batter. ( Do not overmix as the texture of the baked bread will become quite rubbery.)
5. Pour the thick batter into the greased loaf pan and arrange sliced bananas in desired pattern.
6. Place the loaf pan in the middle rack of the oven. Bake at 350 C for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle part of the cake comes out clean.
7. Remove loaf pan from oven and allow bread to cool in pan for 15 minutes before turning it out onto cake rack to cool down.

*Notes:
1. I made my own oat flour by grinding rolled oats in my blender. I'm trying to incorporate more fiber into my diet. You can easily substitute.it with all purpose or whole wheat flour.
2. The  sliced bananas used for decoration needs to be sprinkled with lemon juice to prevent browning if you want to prepare all the ingredients beforehand.  (I skipped that step and ended up with browned bananas since I only thought of dressing it up this way right before I put the pan in oven.)
3. You can add nuts or chocolate chips into the bread too.

My little sister though I was baking Gingerbread when this came out of the oven. All the cinnamony glory! The loaf came out better than expected. Hopefully they didn't notice the healthier substitutions. ( Yes, I use my family members as guinea pigs). Maybe I'll try adding coco powder next time and trick my brother that I made chocolate cake. ( He despises bananas) Try this out and let me know how you like it.

Rookie Foodie and Blogger

I've been toying around with the idea of creating a food blog for a while yet just can't seem to put actual actions into it. Why you wonder? 

 My Reasons:
1. Not owning a good camera nor the editing skills required.

2. Writing a blog puzzles me. I've no idea how to adjust the settings and all. Guess I'll be learning along the process.

3. Lack of accurate measurements in terms of ingredients used. I try to use my instinct which sometimes fails me BIG TIME. Now I'm trying to be more mindful about that matter.

4. Fear. Of not executing things right and maybe exposing some part of myself that i don;t even know exists. 

5. Inability to give constant updates. I'm staying in a kitchen-less matchbox size of a hostel room roughly about 10 months a year. U can relate that yourselves.
.....

and i could have come up with more reasons if I wanted to. So why hesitate I asked myself. Nothing bad is gonna come out of this. Therefore I just took the plunge. I'll be needing a whole lot of help and assistance to get the hang of things. Are you willing to teach me?