Banana Bread Gets a Makeover

1 Comment | Written on November 22, 2011 at 11:00 am, by Rebecca Coleman

There are eight kids aged six and under at my family holiday celebrations. Each of my brothers has three kiddos and I have two of my own. When it comes to Thanksgiving, the kids are so excited to see each other they barely touch their meal.

Hmmm… that’s not exactly true. There is one thing the kids can’t get enough of: bread. Make that banana bread, pumpkin bread, zucchini bread, and corn bread. We bake it all for Thanksgiving and then enjoy it again the next morning. (Lightly toasted with butter. Mmmm!)

I love this tradition and wouldn’t give it up for anything, but those “breads” might as well be called cakes. They really pack in the calories with all that sugar and fat. So this year I decided to test out some healthier versions of these old favorites and I’m happy to report we found a really good Reduced-Calorie Banana Bread recipe. We managed to make it even healthier by replacing half of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour! Then we added some calories back in by tossing in a handful of nuts.

My kids love mashing up the bananas while I prep the rest of the ingredients. Turned out to be an awesome group effort for our Thanksgiving text run . . . but I think I’ll pass on getting eight kids to mash anything this Thanksgiving. Looks like I’ll be on my own for this one.