It's Pinspired Friday! {Skinny Chocolate Chip Banana Bread}

Hi all! It's Pinspired Friday!

Today, I'm inspired by this pin from Skinnymom.com.

Skinny Chocolate Chip Banana Bread from Skinnymom.com

And here's what I came up with:

It all started when I had a banana on my toast with some peanut butter this morning and I realized the bananas were starting to look a little sad. And brown. Which only means one thing... it's banana bread time.

But I wanted to continue eating healthy, so off to Pinterest I went in search of a recipe and found this one by Skinnymom. So I gathered my ingredients and gave the recipe a once over to make sure I had everything, or could substitute things that I didn't have.

At first glance, the recipe seemed a little... off. First, we're cooking at 330 degrees, which... okay. It's just an odd temperature. As I'm mixing though, it feels like I'm making a lot... then I notice in direction #9 that it's because the recipe is for 2 loaves. Oy. That's what I get for skimming! (In the end, the mixture really only made enough mix for about a 2/3 full size loaf pan. So if you want two short loaves, go for it, but I put it all in one.). Then... as I'm skimming, I'm making a metal list of the gadgets and bowls I'll need... and I read it as needing four separate bowls for mixing all of the ingredients!

This is kind of how I felt at that point.

Luckily, I actually read (reading is fundamental!) and realized she called for three separate bowls. But, if you've been reading my blog for any length of time, I'm not a fan of extra or unnecessary bowls and dishes when prepping food. So I got it down to two. I could have probably done even just one bowl... but I was photographing it for the blog and wanted to make sure it turned out. Ha!

So let's make some chocolate chip banana bread, shall we?

You'll need:

• 2 1/2 - 3 very ripe bananas (I used 2.5)

• 6 oz of vanilla fat free yogurt

• 1 tbsp of I can't believe it's not butter spread, or similar

• 2 egg whites (I used one full egg and 1 egg white)

• 1 1/2 cup unbleached flour (doesn't matter if bleached or unbleached, but has to be all purpose)

• 1 tsp salt

• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup splenda granulated sugar (I use about half and half real sugar and splenda, or 1/4 cup of each)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

First off, preheat your oven to 330 degrees, if you're making two small loaves. Otherwise, preheat your oven to 350 for one big loaf. I did the 330 for 1 big loaf and it ended up taking about 45-50 minutes for it to (finally) cook through, along with about 10 minutes using the convection cooking option on my oven... toooo long.

Grease up your loaf pan (or two) with non-stick spray or Crisco.

In a bowl, mash up your bananas. Make sure you're using a bowl big enough for other ingredients. Once you've got them smashed, kind of push them up on the side of the bowl. I'm helping eliminate an extra dish to wash here. ;)

Add the butter/spread, yogurt, vanilla extract, brown sugar and splenda/sugar. Mix those together, trying to avoid mixing in the banana mash initially.

Then, mix the bananas in, along with the egg whites.

Now, in a separate bowl (you can be a rebel here if you want and use the same bowl, I would imagine), add the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Mix.

Now, add the flour mix to the liquid mix. Mix together until blended, but take care not to overmix as it is a very heavy, dense mix. Then, add your chocolate chips.

Transfer the mixture into either a) two loaf pans, which will probably be about 1/3 full in each loaf pan) or b) in one loaf pan. I'm doing one loaf, and you'll see that the loaf pan is about 2/3 of the way full.

For one loaf - bake at 350 for 25 minutes, checking on it in the last 5-10 minutes. You may require more time or less.

For two loaves - bake at 330 for 30-35 minutes, checking in on them in the last 5-10 minutes.

When a butter knife comes out clean, the banana bread is done! :) Sometimes you'll hit a chocolate chip, so it may take multiple times to figure out if the bread is actually done.

And there you have it! As you can see, the middle of mine caved as it was not cooking as evenly as the outside - but it still tastes awesome. :) The yogurt is such a great idea for dropping almost all of the butter and you truly cannot taste the difference. I was pleased that this had such a great taste, especially with using Splenda, as I have had little luck in getting my "desserts" tasting like anything besides plastic when using Splenda only. Of course, because I used half splenda, half sugar it brings the calories up just a bit.

Enjoy!

I'm linking up with these parties!