Not every morning in my life is filled with Chocolate Chip Buttermilk Pancakes and Chocolate Chocolate Chip Banana Bread… not when things like my ten year class reunion and bathing suit season loom just around the corner. For real friends, those are two scary things. At least I don’t have to go to my ten year reunion in my bathing suit. Can you imagine the horror!? Yea… so there’s always a silver lining.
I’d like to introduce you to Low Fat Oatmeal Banana Bread. If this bread were one of your dear friends from high school, it would be that friend who wore old lady shoes because they were the most practical, and played the trombone, and was the super smart editor of the school newspaper. This bread would be the friend that was super sensible, and sweet and just downright made you feel good about your day.
Go ahead, think of this Low Fat Oatmeal Banana Bread as your friend… and then it eat. No, there’s nothing weird about that.
This bread is packed full of happy, heart-healthy oats, cinnamon spice and crazy ripe bananas. It’s just the thing to throw together over the weekend, slice up, wrap individually, and freeze for breakfast for the entire week. I just grab a slice from the freezer as I’m running out the door, and by the time I have a chance to eat it, it’s perfectly defrosted. Of course the microwave and toaster oven work wonders too.
Low Fat Oatmeal Banana Bread
adapted from the Weight Watchers site
makes 1 loaf of 10 slices, 4 points per slice
– 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
– 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
– 1/2 tsp salt
– 1/2 tsp baking soda
– 1/4 tsp baking powder
– 1/2 tsp cinnamon
– 3 tsp canola or walnut oil
– 1 large egg, beaten
– 2 medium egg whites, beaten
– 3 large bananas, ripe
– 1 cup uncooked old fashioned oats
Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a loaf pan and set aside. In a large bowl, stir together dry ingredients including the oats and cinnamon.
In a smaller bowl, mash bananas with a potato masher or fork. Add oil and whole egg and mix thoroughly.
Add the 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 loaf is firm to touch, 45 to 50 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool in pan for 5 minutes. Flip out and cool on a wire rack for another 10 minutes. Slice loaf into 10 equally sized slices.
JoAnn
Sounds great…can’t wait to try. Is it okay to substitute the oatmeal with “instant” oatmeal? Thanks. JoAnn
Mere
I am super excited to try this recipe next week. I’ll be baking it for a mid-afternoon snack at an art workshop for families, and I bet the kids won’t even know it’s good for them! (I’m also planning on using 75% spelt flour to up the nutrition quotient.)
Question: I have recently become obsessed with dates and am wondering if making date paste in a food processor would work as a substitute for the brown sugar? I’m sure it would taste great, I just don’t know how it will impact the consistency of the bread. Any suggestions? Thanks!
MDN
I made this today and I was a little bit disappointed, i put it in the open at 350 convection for 30 mins and i decided to touch the top of the loaf just in case – it was pretty firm so i decided to take it out then, if i were to do this again i would leave it in for perhaps only 20 mins and add more cinnamon and perhaps more applesauce.
Amanda
in the oven! second time i’ve made this! The first time I soaked the oats in 1/2 cup of plain greek yogurt and used an egg substitute that someone suggested above. This time I soaked the oats in 1/2 cups of soy milk that I soured and used 2 whole eggs. I’m sure it’ll turn out great and it is perfect road trip food! (oh forgot to add: I tossed in some chocolate chunks at the end!!)