Healthy Blueberry Banana Bread-Cake

When life gives you ripe bananas and going-soft blueberries, make bread-cake! I call this “bread-cake” because it’s very thick, very dense, and very moist. You can eat it like a slice of bread but had it been baked in a 9″ round pan and topped with buttercream icing, it would’ve surely passed for a cake.

The way I see it, it’s the best of both worlds.

When it comes to baking, I like to create my own recipes. I do a little bit a planning with approximate measurements but then I like to change things up as I go. One of my improvisations was to incorporate oat bran. As you know, I adore the TJ’s oat bran muffins. I simply love the texture of bran in baked goods.

I also used this as a chance to experiment with the NuNaturals Stevia Baking Blend I was sent to review (see notes below). You could easily substitute sugar/honey/agave nectar as the sweetener. Regardless, you don’t have to use much sweetener in this recipe because the banana adds a great deal of natural sweetness.

Instead of butter, I used avocado, which gave it a rich creamy texture. Don’t be scared, you cannot taste the flavor of the avocado.

Healthy Blueberry Banana Bread-Cake

This bread-cake is chock full of wholesome ingredients, making it perfect for breakfast, dessert or even an afternoon snack. The whole grain flour, flax seeds, and fruit make it high in fiber while the avocado, yogurt and banana give it a dense cake-like texture.

Ingredients

• 2 cups whole grain flour (I used 1/2 c each of oat flour, oat bran, spelt flour, and whole wheat pastry flour)
• 1/4 cup ground flax seeds
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 med-sized bananas
• 2 TBSP avocado
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup stevia baking blend (or sugar/honey/agave nectar)
• 1/2 cup plain nonfat yogurt
• 1 cup blueberries

Directions

Preheat oven to 325* F. In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients. Set aside 1/2 a banana and mash into small chunks with a fork. Blend together wet ingredients using a food processor, blender, or a whisk (whisk it well!) and then mix in the banana chunks. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just incorporated. Fold in 3/4 cup of blueberries. Pour batter into a loaf pan and top with remaining blueberries. Bake for 45 minutes or when inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Notes

This bread-cake is very moist and therefore should be baked at a lower temperature for a longer period of time to ensure even baking. Depending on your oven, you may have to bake it at 300* F. I would consider using an additional 1/2 cup of flour to slightly decrease the moisture of the bread. The stevia worked well in this recipe. I could taste the stevia (slightly different from sugar), but it wasn’t obvious.

Substitutions

• oil or butter for avocado
• whole wheat pastry flour or all-purpose flour for the whole grain flours above
• sugar/agave/honey for stevia
• a ‘flax egg’ for the egg

Happy baking!

Tagged as: Avocado, Banana, Blueberries, Bread, Cake