Best Healthy Banana Bread

I've been on the search for the best banana bread for a long time. I finally found one I loved, and then I started eating healthier so banana bread became a once every 6 months type treat. I didn't have a use for my old bananas anymore. I personally don't love bananas in the first place, so banana bread was the only time I was really eating banana bread before.

Time to do what I do best, healthifying a recipe! Yes, I just made that word up.

This project took awhile, not as long as it took to find a good recipe in the first place, but still. I'm very perticular about my banana bread. I needed it to be good enough that I didn't feel the need to add butter. I obviously wanted it to be moist, NO ONE wants dry banana bread. It needed to taste like banana bread (one version I tried, my husband came home and had a slice, and asked what kind of bread it was. oops!)

Here's a few trick I was given and learned along the way.

1) Use the nastiest bananas you can find. WAYYYY past the point of where you'd eat them. The batch I made today I used completely black bananas. This helps the bread taste sweet, and have a more potent (but not over powering) banana flavor.

2) Don't skip the applesauce!

3) Don't be lazy, prep before you start mixing. whisk the eggs, smash the bananas, mix the dry ingredients, etc.

4) Don't over mix, fold in the dry ingredients.

5) Always enjoy a warm slice :)

Try it out, send me a picture, let me know what you think!

Banana Bread
2 cups flour (I like Bob Red Mill's organic, unbleached all purpose flour)
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/4 unsweetened apple sauce
3/4 cup raw honey
3 eggs beaten
2 1/3 cups mashed bananas

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9x5 loaf pan with a little coconut oil. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt. In a seperate bowl, cream unmelted coconut oil, applesauce and honey. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended.

Fold banana mixture into flour mixture, careful not to over mix.

Pour batter into loaf pan. Bake for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Let cool for 5-10 minutes, then remove from pan by flipping the pan upside down, and let cool on a wire rack.

Serving size is one slice. Each slice is one yellow, 1/2 a purple, and 1 teaspoon.