by Caroline

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As I have written elsewhere, there’s always room in my repertoire for one more banana bread recipe; this one I found originally in The Baker’s Dozen Cookbook and have been tinkering with it (reducing the fat and sugar, upping the protein) ever since. You can make these as a quick bread (bake for about an hour) or muffins (bake for about 25 minutes); either way, they are banana-y, buttery and delicious.

Note: you can certainly make this with 1-1/4 c all purpose flour (omitting the whole wheat flour and wheat germ) and with 8 T (one stick) of butter (omitting the flax seed), and it’ll be delicious, just not so virtuous.

2-3 ripe bananas (about 1 cup, mashed)
3/4 c all purpose flour
1/4 c whole wheat flour
1/4 c wheat germ
9 T ground flax seed
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
3/4 c brown sugar
5 T butter
2 eggs
1/2 c chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 and grease an 8″ x 4″ loaf pan or a 12-cup muffin tin.

Mash the bananas in a medium bowl until pretty smooth.

Whisk the flours, wheat germ, flax seed, baking soda, and salt in another bowl.

Using the flat whisk in a stand mixer, mix the sugar and butter well to make a stiff paste (you can also do this by hand, of course). Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Mix in the mashed banana. Stir in the walnuts, if using (don’t worry if the batter looks curdled). Now add the flour mixture and stir until just blended (don’t overmix or worry about a few lumps). Put the batter in the prepared pan.

Bake until a skewer comes out clean, about 45 minutes to an hour for bread, 25 minutes for muffins. Cool on racks in the baking pan for 10 minutes, then remove from the pans and cool completely.