Baking on a Saturday - banana-date bread

I love to eat bananas. Bananas are so great as a snack alone, topped on plain greek yogurt, munched on with a guilty scoop of peanut butter, or dipped in chocolate. But sometimes, bananas slip through the cracks. They get brown, ugly and super mushy. We don't do it on purpose, really. I try to time the bananas so I can eat the bananas prior to ripening - I try to choose varying shades of green-to-light yellow bananas to try to plan out banana eating throughout the week. But we can't help it - sometimes a banana will go ripe and brown under our watch.

What to do with ripened bananas? MOH and I like to use ripened bananas as the "butter" component of our baked desserts.

This week, I tried making a banana-date bread with no sugar (aside from sugar in the fruits, that is).

The results were great! I tried to explore the no-sugar route as an homage to my middle sister, who has enjoyed health improvements after axing sugar from her diet.

This recipe is simple and easy to do. In my sloppiness, I eyeballed the ingredients at times and everything worked out in the end!

This bread isn't overly sweet at all, as the only sources of sugar are from the bananas, dates, and blueberries. There's also a slight crunch due to walnuts.

Feel free to modify as you see fit! I'm thinking figs would be great here too.

Ingredients - makes enough for a bread loaf (modified from the following recipe):
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups of all purpose gluten free flour
- 1 cup of dried dates (roughly 6-7 Medjool dates) soaked in hot water until softened
- 2 ripened bananas
- 4 tablespoons of coconut oil
- 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract (or a squirt)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp of baking powder
- 1/4 cup of walnuts
- 1/3 cup of blueberries

Bread ingredients are extremely flexible - interested in more fruits? Try adding in other berries

Protocol:
1. Soak dates in hot water until softened - preheat oven to 350 degree F
2. Mash dates and bananas together until smooth mix (can use blender too if you prefer)
3. Mix eggs and coconut oil together until blended
4. Mix in flour, vanilla extract, salt, baking soda, and baking powder
5. Mix in dates/bananas to dry mix
6. Add in dry mixture with coconut oil and eggs
7. When everything mixed well, fold in blueberries and walnuts
8. Pour mix into loaf pan and bake 50 minutes in oven
9. Take out when done, and bread can be eaten right away!

Hope everyone is having a great Saturday! I finished my last class EVER for graduate school, so I'm experiencing my first weekend without any thoughts of advancement, finals, quizzes, homework! Until next time, happy eating all!