Instead of going with my stand-by banana bread recipe, i thought i would try something different. Once upon a time i made a kickass pumpkin bread with oatmeal in it and i can't find the recipe anywhere. It's really annoying. No one in my family except me will eat oatmeal AS oatmeal. I'm always trying to find ways of putting it into their food so it's just there, but in a tasty way. I grew up on oatmeal, and i love it, and don't understand any of them at all as they turn their nose up at it.
I found this recipe which was adapted by Joy the Baker from the Weight Watchers recipe.
Lately, i run back and forth from my kitchen to my computer as i read recipes. I'd write them down but that takes longer. I find writing them down doesn't really help me in the long run because i just lose it and have to do it again later if i want to make it again. That's what happened to my oatmeal pumpkin bread recipe. I'm awful about it. I have recipes all over the place.
Well, the down side to this is sometimes i just throw things together and then by the time i read the recipe again, i think 'Oh, crap... that's not what i did!'
So, i will now hopefully entertain you (or not) with the method to my madness.
The recipe goes like this:
1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour.
½ cup packed brown sugar
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp baking powder
½ tsp cinnamon
3 tsp canola or walnut oil
1 large egg, beaten
2 egg whites
3 large ripe bananas
1 cup uncooked old-fashioned oats
Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and flour loaf pan and set aside. In a large bowl stir together the dry ingredients, including the oats and cinnamon.
At first, this was all i read of the recipe. I was like 'Gotcha!' and ran off to the kitchen.
So i combined my dry ingredients in one bowl (i used allspice since i couldn't find my cinnamon anywhere!), and mashed my bananas in a 2nd bowl, and then i threw my egg, egg whites, and 3 Tbsp (not tsp.) of applesauce instead of oil into one bowl together and kind of beat the hell out of it with a fork.
And then i came back and read more of the recipe, to make sure i wasn't forgetting anything.
In a smaller bowl, mash bananas with a fork. Add oil and whole egg and mix thoroughly.
Add wet ingredients to the dry and mix well. Batter will be fairly thick.
In a medium sized bowl, with an electric hand mixer, beat the egg whites until medium stiff peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the batter in three additions.
Pour batter into pan and bake until top of bread is firm to touch, about 40-50 minutes. Remove from oven and let sit 5 minutes in the pan. Then flip out and let cool completely on a wire rack.
Loaf makes about 10 slices, 4 WW points apiece.
Hmm. Well, obviously i didn't follow the recipe. So i got my electric mixer and mixed the egg/applesauce mixture for a couple minutes. No way i was going to get stiff peaks but whatever.
And i didn't fold it into the mixture either. I dumped everything together and mixed it with my mixer for a minute.
I slid my loaf pan into the oven.
I looked around and i thought to myself... I have 2 bananas left. I wonder if it would make a difference to make another loaf with just those two bananas? The first loaf came out and as it cooled i noticed it was a shallow loaf. The photo Joy the Baker has on her page looked the same, but i also wondered if there would be a difference in the loaves if i actually followed the recipe like i was supposed to.
So i made another. Same as before, i used 3 Tbsp applesauce (i thought the original recipe used 3 Tbsp canola oil, but i misread it) and i subbed allspice for the cinnamon. 2 bananas. I also added a couple handfuls of walnuts. My kids hate nuts in their breads and cookies, but i love them, and so does my husband and son.
I did a side by side comparison of the loaves. On the left is the first loaf, and on the right the one i followed by the recipe and added nuts. There's a slight difference in size but it's really negligible.
So my husband and i did a taste test for comparison after dinner.
My husband said it was okay, but drier than my usual breads. Basically, he's asking me not to do this again.
And he's right. They are not as moist as i expect my quick breads to be. But it could be the oatmeal. Old fashioned oats probably suck up some of the moisture that would normally be present in the bread.
Well, i decided that my final decision would be based on the age old question:
How does this go with coffee?
It's better with coffee. Not really the best bread, but it IS low-fat. I mean, i warned you in the title of this blog. I didn't want the fact that it originally came from Weight Watchers to weigh in on my decision, and i think i am being fair to say i didn't. I also did not warn my husband it was low-fat before he took a bite because i didn't want him to be biased.
I would say that if you're looking for something low-fat for either a breakfast bread or a snack, this would be good. Hey, with the oatmeal, it's also heart healthy! And that's always good, right?
After all the cake i have made lately, it's probably good to eat something like this once in a while.
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