The Best Healthy Banana Bread

My absolute favorite baking dish has to be banana bread. It must be because of how much I love bananas and sweet yet hearty breads. The combination is perfect. Ever since I was a little kid, I always had to have a banana every day. And I was picky, too. The banana had to be the perfect ripeness. Yellow with hints of green. Not ripe, but just getting there. I had a thing against those really yellow bananas. They were just too ripe and mushy. But...ripe bananas are exactly what you need for baking!


My quick breads are made with whole wheat bread for the hearty texture. I added graham cracker to the top, which added a little something extra to the banana breads I've had before. Man, when I ate a slice of this, I was simply in heaven. My face just goes into an expression of pure bliss and all I want to do is enjoy that bite forever. My mom took it to work and liked it a lot, too, even though I didn't use any white flour - all whole wheat! This made me pretty happy.

Graham-Topped Whole Wheat Banana Bread
Ingredients
2 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1egg
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large ripe bananas, mashed
1.5-2 graham cracker sheets, crushed

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and lightly flour an 8.5" by 4.5" loaf pan.
2. Mix flour, baking soda, salt, and brown sugar in a large bowl.
3. Mix vegetable oil, egg, milk, and vanilla extract. Mix into dry ingredients.
4. Mix in mashed bananas. Pour into loaf pan, then sprinkle top generously with graham cracker crumbs.
5. Bake 55-60 min until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

My bread came out slightly moist near the middle when I tried it, but it was actually very good. The next day and following, the texture gets better in the bread. Enjoy this for breakfast or dessert; this is a great quick bread!