Peanut butter banana bread

This recipe comes courtesy of the Peanut Butter Boy, Nick. I’ve bookmarked a number of recipes in his archives, but this one really jumped out at me this week. And since tomorrow is National Peanut Butter day, what better way to celebrate?

I did alter the recipe quite a bit. First, and most obviously, I halved it. As a result, some measurements ended up funny, so I decreased the sugar just a tad, and added a touch of macadamia nut oil to replace the missing smidge of peanut butter. Since banana can actually be used as an egg replacer, I took out the egg and upped the amount of banana just slightly (which also made up for the small decrease in sugar). Vanilla soymilk stood in for milk, and finally, I used just a handful of peanut-butter-and-chocolate swirled chips instead of chopped dark chocolate. You can use those, or peanut butter chips, or chocolate chips, or a mixture, or chopped walnuts, or nothing at all...really, you can’t go wrong.

1 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
3T white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar, loosely packed
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cinnamon
2 medium ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup soymilk
1/3 cup peanut butter
2 tsp nut oil (optional)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup chocolate or peanut butter chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugars, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. In a medium bowl, combine the mashed bananas, soymilk, peanut butter, oil, and vanilla.



This recipe is not only customizable, as demonstrated above, but forgivable as well. I only had one large banana instead of two medium, so I added about 1/4 cup of canned pumpkin puree to make up for it. Since I lost out on a little banana flavor that way, I also used my PB Loco Jungle Banana for half the peanut butter. I’m telling you, you really can’t go wrong with this.

Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and stir just until combined.



Gently mix in the chocolate/peanut butter chips.



Pour the batter into the pan...



...and bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.



It’s not at all unusual for veganized baked goods like this not to rise very much (at least in my experience), so don’t worry that it’s rather flat. Allow it to cool for awhile before slicing it. I lasted about 10 minutes.



Once you taste this baby, you won’t care one bit how squat or stodgy the loaf is. Its texture is dense, chewy, and rich (not unlike that of my peanut butter bliss cake), with a moist peanut butter backdrop and the fragrant flavor of banana woven throughout. Positively heavenly.



Yield: 1 loaf (12 slices). Per slice: 175 calories, 6.6g fat (2.2g sat), 25.3g carbs, 2.9g fiber, 4.5g protein.

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Peanut butter bliss cake