Banana Bread

If you have kids, you know how weird they can be. My younger one has her own definition for a fruit. It has to be one of these: pear, apple, banana, clementine (note here: orange is not a clementine for her) and sometimes grapes. My older one on the other hand likes watermelon, cantaloupe, pear, apple and clementine. So, I end up buying common fruits and the not common fruits too.
I prefer to have banana on hand since if, for some reason my younger one doesn't eat her meal, I can giver her a banana which will buy me some time to fix her something else.
Probably because of the heat, bananas ripened too fast and my kid won't touch it if it is not firm. So, here I go again to use up the bananas.

Ingredients:
Whole Wheat flour - 1 cup
All purpose flour - 1 1/2 cup
Sugar - 1 cup (May use brown sugar - see notes)
Baking Powder - 1 1/2 tsp
Baking soda - 1 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Eggs - 2
Vegetable Oil - 1/3 cup (If you like butter, use melted butter instead)
Banana - mashed and measured 2 cups (about 4 large ripe ones)
Vanilla - 2 tsp

Method:
In a bowl, whisk together flours, salt, baking soda, baking powder, sugar. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 350 F (325 F if using darker or glass pan). Spray a 9 X 5 loaf pan with vegetable oil spray. Set aside.
In another bowl, beat the two eggs lightly. Add oil, mashed bananas, vanilla. Whisk again. Now, slowly add the dry ingredients to wet and stir until just moist and no streaks of flour is seen. Pour into the prepared pan. Bake for 55 - 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. After 45 minutes, take out the pan from the oven, loosely tent with aluminum foil and then continue to bake to prevent over browning.

Notes:
It is very easy to make this eggless and even vegan. All you have to do is use 2 TBSP of flax meal with 6 TBSP of warm water. Whisk together and use it in the place of eggs. I used eggs so that I do not polish of the whole loaf of bread.
You could add about a cup of toasted walnuts or 1 cup of chocolate chips. This is not a very sweet bread I was told, so if you like your bread to be sweet like a cake, use about 1 1/4 cup of sugar and not just 1 cup. You could use part brown sugar and part white sugar.
Omit vanilla, use about 1 tsp of cardamom powder, fold in a cup of shredded coconut for an Indian taste.


Happy Baking!!