Healthy Blueberry Banana Bread

It's the weekend and I am baking for breakfast for the coming week. But I wanted to try a healthier recipe, one with less sugar and fat. Since I really love my Banana Bread recipe and the bananas were going for only 98c/kg in Thomas Dux, I decided to make Blueberry Banana Bread for a change. This is what I did to the original recipe:

• Replace brown sugar with regular raw sugar
• Reduce sugar quantities by half
• Replace butter with rice bran oil
• Reduce oil quantities by half
• Reduced treacle quantities by 20%

Despite reducing sugar and fats from the recipe, the banana bread was still soft and moist and oh so yummy! Here's how you can make this Blueberry Banana Bread.....

Ingredients:

• 1 cup mashed banana
• 1 cup drained canned/frozen/fresh blueberries (I used canned)
• 1/2 cup (110g) raw sugar (regular is fine)
• 2 eggs
• 20g rice bran oil or any plant oils like sunflower or canola oil
• 1/2 cup (125ml) buttermilk or make your own by adding 1/2tsb white vinegar to 1/2 cup of milk and let it stand for 5 mins before using it
• 70g treacle
• 1 1/2 cups (225g) plain flour
• 1 cup (150g) self-raising flour
• 2 tsp mixed spice
• 1 tsp soda bicarbonate

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 180deg or 160deg fan forced

2. Line the baking pan with baking paper (to avoid burnt sides)

3. Combine banana, sugar, eggs, oil, buttermilk and treacle in a large bowl, mix well, and stir in sifted dry ingredients (both flour, soda bicarbonate and mixed spice).

4. Spoon mixture into baking pan (loaf pan), bit by bit and add blueberries after each addition

5. Bake for about 1 hour. Let the bread stand in the pan for 10 mins after that

6. Remove from baking pan, and let it cool on wite rack

Now you have no excuse to buy cafe banana bread when you get can healthier ones if you made them at home. Enjoy!

Cheers.