The Best Healthy Banana Bread Recipe From the 90’s

A Lighter Banana Bread Recipe

This recipe was a staple in my family growing up. I even have a copy of the original my mom cut out of a magazine! I remember my mom making it for Saturday morning breakfasts, potlucks at church, and just as an easy after school snack.

Here it is copied into my recipe book, I find the title pretty comical! It was written in 1992.

Boy, if only the 90’s new what todays trends would bring. They had no idea we would be eating avocado toast, pancake cereal or dolgona coffee (whipped coffee).

Though I always reference this recipe when I make banana bread, I have modified a lot of it to make it even healthier and tastier!

A nice thing about this recipe I’ve developed is that it makes 2 loaves. I love that I can make it once, and have a loaf to freeze.

First, I always start with four medium sized bananas, as a busy mom I don’t find the need to measure out the banana exactly, cuz who’s got the time? If I have larger bananas that time I just use 3 and a half.

Then I mash them thoroughly with a potato masher. This is an important step because if you rely on your mixer to break up the bananas, it doesn’t do the job well enough and you end up with chunks of banana in your bread.

From there I add in 4 egg whites and sugar then mix together. Then I add the oil and mix again.

After that, as you’ll realize from my recipes, I like to make things as easy and simple as possible. So add in the baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and pumpkin pie spice to the batter, and mix until just combined.

Let me just interject here and talk about the pumpkin pie spice. I know, it’s a weird ingredient to find in banana bread. The original recipe called for nutmeg but I’m not a huge fan of its intensity. However, you still need some kinda kick to the spice flavor. I came upon the idea of using pumpkin pie spice accidentally when I didn’t have any nutmeg and only pumpkin pie spice in the house so I tried it! And it totally worked! Did you know that pumpkin pie spice is actually just a mixture of spices, nutmeg being one of the ingredients?

Lastly I mix in the flour until just combined. From there you can add in any final mix-ins such as nuts or chocolate chips. And I’ll let you in on a little secret, a few years ago I tried using less and less sugar each time I made the recipe, just to see how low I could go before tasting a difference. I ended up reducing the sugar in the recipe by half and haven’t looked back since! So to justify, I almost always mix in chocolate chips!

To finish, I bake in a 350 degree oven for about 43-45 minutes. At the end just check to make sure a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

A little trick at the end is that I like to let the breads cool for 30 minutes and cover one with plastic wrap so that the remaining steam makes the top crust soft and gooey. At that point I wrap up the other loaf in a freezer bag to freeze and serve another time. Don’t worry, the freezing and thawing process helps this loaf have a gooey top too!

I really hope you enjoy this recipe! It’s my goal to share recipes that my family loves that are simple and easy to make in your home as well. Happy baking! Let me know how it turned out in the comments!

-Hailee

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