There’s a funny thing I’ve noticed as I have experimented more and more with making my own baked goods and depending less and less on the store-bought versions: you really don’t need all the sugar that the recipes usually call for!

My first inkling of this was when I was introduced to a yogurt cake recipe by my mom that only called for ½ cup of sugar. At first I thought that my mom must have written it down wrong, but I followed the directions anyway and when the cake came out of the oven, it was just as sweet and delicious as I could possibly have wanted. So I decided to start playing around with sugar in recipes. I cut the sugar in cookie recipes in half and no one noticed. I cut down on sweeteners in zucchini bread and no one flinched. I was stunned.

The same was true of my banana bread recipe. When I first started looking more seriously at my go-to recipe I was sort of embarrassed to realize that I had been blithely throwing in 1 cup of sugar AND ½ a cup of honey. That’s crazy! But I was nervous that everyone would revolt if I cut the sugar, so I started slowly. ¾ of a cup, ½ a cup, bit by bit, and no one seemed to care. So finally, one day, I took the plunge and cut out the sugar completely and it was still a huge hit!

The trick here is that the banana is really sweet and there is some honey, so I’m not advocating cutting all of the sweeteners out of your baked goods, but cutting down can be a fun and easy experiment that can help make your food even healthier.

Whole Wheat, No Sugar Banana Bread

 

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Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

20 mins

Total time

30 mins

 

Author: Jessica Braider

Serves: 12

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons butter
• ½ cup honey
• 2 eggs
• 2 overripe bananas
• 1 ½ cup whole wheat flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon allspice
• ½ cup walnuts, chopped (optional)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease a loaf tin or a muffin tin.
2. In a food processor or with a mixer, cream the butter and honey. Add eggs. Add banana. Mix in flour, soda, salt, and allspice, blend quickly and thoroughly.
3. Fold in nuts, if using.
4. If making a loaf, bake for one hour, or until a tooth pick inserted in comes out clean and the loaf is pulling away from the sides. If making muffins, bake for 20 minutes, or until a tooth pick inserted in comes out clean and the muffins are pulling away from the sides.

Notes

A portion size note: whenever I slice up a loaf of bread (banana, zucchini, pumpkin, etc.) I find that I get about 10 slices. If this is true for you as well and you are trying to be careful with portion size, try the muffin tins—you’ll get 12 servings instead of 10!

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