Cinnamon Carob Banana Bread

Soo, this was supposed to be carob and banana marble bread, but Whole Foods was out of carob powder…..really?  That many people are rushing to the hippie chocolate??  Ugh, I miss the days when no one knew about things like carob and quinoa.  But I suppose the recent intrigue in nutrition is a good thing (I don’t mind the quinoa options available to me in restaurants now mm, or the abundance of healthy recipes at my fingertips).

Back-up plan: carob chips tossed into the mix instead.  Unfortunately, I failed to read the label on the carob chips, seeing that it was my last option and I needed it to work…turns out “healthy” is not a good word to describe these (the powder is not polluted with all of these added ingredients found in the chips).  But I’ve been indulging in Halloween candy, Thanksgiving pies and the chocolate bowl at work, why stop now?

I justify it by using whole wheat flour, splenda-brown sugar mix, and olive oil (Ha.  Like that cancels out anything).  If you want the original recipe that calls for carob powder, follow this link.  It’s vegan, but I don’t follow that part.  Eggs please.

This recipe uses a rice cooker to make the bread, which I triiied doing, but my cooker kept thinking it was finished every 4 minutes, so I switched to the oven.  The part that I pulled from the bottom of the rice cooker was cooking just fine though..but maybe it would have been burnt by the time the rest was finished..

I simply followed the recipe above (with the exception of my small tweaks) and tossed the carob chips in once I had mixed all ingredients together.   Oh, and a note on the bananas– I find it works really well if they are overly ripe and browning…super easy to mash up, and they are all “full flavor ahead!”  Andd I’m up too late.

Happy bread-making!

Ingredients (with my tweaking):

• 1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup splenda-brown sugar mix
• 1/4 cup apple sauce
• 1  egg
• 1 cup mashed banana (3 small bananas for a cup.)
• 1/2 cup carob chips

Mix your wet ingredients in a small bowl and the dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Pour the wet into the dry bowl, mix well, and drop in the carob chips.  Bake at 350 for about 30-40 min.