Clean Banana Bread

I love when I get requests from people to make them different things. Selfishly it makes me feel good about my cooking abilities, but I really do it because I know that they appreciate my cooking. This time the request was for banana bread. I haven't made it in quite a while actually, so I was excited about it. She also wanted me to make it healthy which was a fun challenge. These days I am beginning more and more to look at recipes and see how to make them my own. I have a recipe for "clean" banana bread which means that there are no processed ingredients. This was my first shot at this recipe and I was told that she would like pecans and coconut incorporated into the bread. I was a bit skeptical about the coconut, but it seemed to go over well.

Ingredients:
3 egg whites
2 large ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup honey (you can also use agave or another sugar substitute)
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup pecans, chopped
1/4 cup shredded coconut, sweetened

Directions:

Here's the fun part...mashing the bananas. The riper they are, they better they are for banana bread and the easier they are to mash. You can use a fork or potato masher if you have one.

Using a hand mixer or a stand mixer, beat the egg whites. The recipe didn't say for how long, so I just beat them until they were nice and frothy. Next add in the applesauce, honey and mashed bananas and mix until ingredients are well combined.

In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients together. Add in the vanilla to the wet ingredients and then mix the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until everything is just mixed.

This next step is optional. If you want to add any additional mixins to your bread, now is the time to fold them in. I added in chopped pecans and shredded coconut. Once it is all incorporated, put the batter into a nonstick loaf pan. I sprayed mine with cooking spray just to be on the safe side.

Bake at 325 for 45-50 minutes. Mine was in for 45 minutes, but probably could have done a few minutes less. It will be done when a toothpick comes out clean. Let the bread cool for 10 minutes and then you can serve. This turned out to be a pretty dense bread, but it wasn't heavy. Next, I think I could do just nuts or maybe chocolate chips to make a fair comparison with the other recipe I have tried. The good part about this recipe is that the middle got fully cooked. This is a great recipe if you are looking for a lighter, healthier version of a classic bread.