My kids and I are in a real banana bread phase.  The minute they see the bananas going bad, they ask me to make banana bread.  I’ve been indulging them for the past year by putting chocolate chips in my regular banana bread, which makes them oh so happy!  I’m always happy to see them gobble up pieces of banana bread for breakfast or an after school snack (especially since neither child will eat bananas), but I’ve increasingly felt guilty for essentially giving them a piece of “cake” for breakfast…all the sugar and white flour.  Meanwhile, I have become a big fan of almond butter so I decided to search out a recipe for banana bread that included almond butter to give the kids a little more protein and nutrition.  To my surprise I found this recipe which not only includes almond butter, but it requires no sugar in the batter and instead uses honey.  I did include chocolate chips but that is really the only sugary ingredient. I was really pleased to find this recipe and even more pleased that it tasted as good as it looked!

Chocolate Chip Almond Butter Banana Bread 

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups flour

1/4 cup whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg

1/3 cup honey

1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 2 medium bananas)

1/2 cup low fat buttermilk (I substituted 1/4 cup vanilla yogurt and 1/4 cup 1% milk OR you can add 1/2 Tbsp of vinegar to just under 1/2 cup milk to create buttermilk)

1 large egg, slightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 – 1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Topping: 1/4 cup sliced almonds and  1 tsp turbinado sugar (I used regular and it turned out fine)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat regular sized loaf ban with nonstick spray.

Combine almond butter and honey in a small bowl and heat in microwave for 30 seconds.  Set aside.

In large bowl, mix together flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Add in the banana, buttermilk (or yogurt mixture), egg, vanilla, and almond butter-honey mixture. Stir until just combine.  Mix in chocolate chips gently.

Pour batter in loaf pan.  Sprinkle with sliced almonds and sugar over the top.  Bake for 40-45 minutes or until done.  Cool 15 minutes before removing from pan.

 

(adapted slightly from tutti-dolci.com and veryculinary.com)