Whole Wheat Banana Bread

Some of the best recipes happen by accident. I had three over-ripe bananas that I'd been saving to make my favorite banana bread. And when I went to put my ingredients together tonight I realized I had no AP flour. But I did have whole wheat flour stashed away in the freezer and thought maybe I could do something with that. I grabbed one of my go-to cookbooks and found exactly what I was looking for. King Arthur Flour has a book that is quite fabulous. It's called Whole Grain Baking and has many recipes that are simple, tasty and the end results don't taste dry or grainy. Their banana bread is one of those. This bread is moist, tender and decadent. Only you'll know it's made with whole wheat flour.

Banana Chocolate Chip Bread
Adapted from Whole Grain Baking

The original bread was called Easy Banana Walnut Bread- I omitted the walnuts and added semi sweet chocolate chips . Use a 9x5 inch loaf pan.

1 stick unsalted butter softened
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 ripe bananas mashed
1/4 cup honey
2 large eggs, beaten
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup of semi sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9x5 inch pan. I used PAM.

With hand mixer, beat together the butter, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla in a large bowl until smooth. Add the mashed bananas, honey and eggs, mixing until incorporated. King Arthur says to beat until smooth, but I like my bananas a bit chunky so this is when I put my mixer away and use a wooden spoon or spatula, and try to keep my bananas in chunks. Now stir/fold in the flour and chocolate chips. Combine and don't over mix.

Bake the bread for 50 minutes. Lay a piece of foil over the top of bread and bake another 10-15 minutes. Remove from the oven, let cool in the pan 10 minutes and then remove from baking pan to finish cooling on wire rack. Doesn't that loaf look gorgeous?


This bread is delicious on its own, but even better with cream cheese or peanut butter. I think you know which direction I took.

Cookie Heaven

I spent a good part of last weekend baking cookies for my friend Jonathan's birthday. He requested my Strawberry White Chocolate Chip Birthday Cookies which I was delighted to make. But I wasn't going to stop there so I baked up some Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies and Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies as well. A bit of a chocolate fest, so you know I was happy. I used my trinity flour mix in every batch I made, and NO WAY can you detect the ground oatmeal and whole wheat flour in these cookies. And, what's even better is that these recipes are no fuss, no fail and delicious.

Here are the proportions for the flour mixture again in case you missed it the first time.

Trinity Flour Mix

• 4 cups AP flour
• 2 cups old fashioned oatmeal ground in a food processor or spice mill
• 1 cup whole wheat flour

In large bowl combine ingredients. I don't sift or do anything besides use a whisk to incorporate. Then I pour the flour into a large re-sealable bag and it's ready when I'm ready. Okay... on to the cookies.

Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies
This is a Giada recipe that I've been making for a few years now. She originally made these for a Halloween episode and rolled the uncooked dough in orange turbanado sugar. I have done this using plain old Sugar in the Raw and it's nice- offering great crunch and eye appeal. I didn't do it this time though.

3 1/2 cups trinity flour mix

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

2 sticks softened unsalted butter

1 cup granulated sugar (I used no calorie Splenda)

1 cup brown sugar (I used 1/2 cup Splenda Blend brown sugar for baking)

2 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup Nutella

3/4 cup mini chocolate chips (my addition)

Pre heat oven to 375 degrees. In medium size bowl combine flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside. In large bowl cream butter and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla extract and mix well. Then add the Nutella. When everything looks yummy and incorporated add the dry ingredients. I don't add it all at once, maybe in two or three stages. Now fold in the chocolate chips. Roll dough into 1 to 1-1/2 inch balls and place on parchment lined cookie sheet. Leave a good few inches between cookies because these babies spread. Also-if you want to coat the cookies in raw sugar, do it before you bake them. Bake 10 minutes. The cookies might not look done at 10 minutes, but they are.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
This is an Ina recipe. What can I say? The woman rocks and hasn't led me astray yet. Her original recipe called for toasted pecans and raisins. I've made that. Delicious. But I'm a chocolate gal and took the walnut/chocolate route. I think I now use more brown sugar and less granulated than her original recipe, and the end result is chewy and crunchy and simply heaven. And by the way, this makes a lot of cookies. I think I got close to 4 dozen.

2 sticks softened butter

1 1/2 cups brown sugar (I used 3/4 cup Splenda Blend brown sugar for baking)

1/2 cup granulated sugar (I used Splenda no calorie sugar)

2 eggs- Ina uses extra large eggs but I use large and I haven't had a problem- I guess either size will do

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups trinity flour mix

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp Kosher salt- Ina specified Kosher salt, so that's what I do. If you don't have any- use 3/4 tsp table salt (I'm guessing)

3 cups old fashioned oatmeal

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

1 1/2 cups finely chopped walnuts

Pre heat oven to 350 degrees. In large bowl cream butter and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla extract. Now this next step may sound a bit unorthodox, but add baking powder, cinnamon and Kosher salt to the egg/sugar mixture and combine. These are not Ina's directions, but they're easy and they work just fine. Now add the trinity flour mixture in batches and mix. Stir in the oats. Add chips and walnuts. With a large spoon scoop out about 1 tablespoon of batter per cookie and place on parchment lined cookie sheet. Ina says to flatten the cookies with damp fingers. I have forgotten to do this many times, and it hasn't made too much of a difference in the end result, so if you forget, you'll still be okay. Bake 12 to 14 minutes.

Happy Birthday Jonathan!

The Trinity

I've been a busy gal this holiday season. At least three times a week this month I've had a date after work. Well, a date with my oven that is. I've been competing in my self-declared yearly cookie baking marathon and have now finally come into the home stretch.

One of the things I did differently this year was make up my own All Purpose Flour. As you know, I like to include a little oatmeal and a little whole wheat along with my white flour when I bake. And this little trinity seems to do the trick. It's simply 1 part AP flour, 1/2 part old fashioned oats ground in a spice mill and 1/4 part whole wheat flour. I made a big batch of this and it turned out to be a great time saver and produced some fabulous baked goodies.

Linda's All Purpose Flour
4 cups white flour- I used organic but any will do
2 cups ground old fashioned oats
1 cup traditional whole wheat flour
Sift all 3 flours into a large bowl, stir with a whisk or fork and store in a covered container

I used this mix in my standard chocolate chip cookes and Giada's chocolate hazelnut cookies and they came out great. Better than I expected. So I kept going. It then made an appearance in Erika's Schweddy Balls, my last few ricotta cakes, and a liquored-up version of my pumpkin bread. So if you're looking for more than white flour in your baked goods, and don't know where to begin, give this a try. Any recipe that calls for all purpose flour should adapt very nicely to this blend. And as I love to say, that's one smart reason to have a second helping.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks) softened

1/4 cup packed brown sugar or 1/4 cup plus 2T Splenda Brown Sugar Blend

1/4 cup granulated sugar or 2T Splenda Blend

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 large egg

2 cups Linda 's AP flour mix

2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips

Pre heat oven to 375 degrees.In large bowl using electric mixer, combine butter, sugars, vanilla, salt and baking soda until mixture is smooth. Add egg and mix until incorporated. Add flour and when blended, add chips. Drop by heaping tablespoons on parchment lined baking sheet. Bake 10 minutes or until edges are golden. Remove cookies to a wire rack and cool completely.