My grandmother, Kath, made the best banana bread EVER. Crunchy ends, spongy moist center, yummy banana flavor. It was a childhood favorite.

Bananas rarely last in my house to the over-ripe point [I love them], but this week I realized a few had. I pulled out the handy dandy Downs Family & Friends Favorites Cookbook to look up the recipe. Lucky for me, this particular recipe is already dairy free, but it’s definitely not gluten free. I did change out a couple of the ingredients and I added chia seeds to make it more hippie… but hopefully less hippy :). You’ll see my changes below in bold, but I’ve also left the original just if you wanna try it for comparison sake. You really can’t tell any difference, if you ask me. It’s so healthy it’s practically salad.

No, no it’s not. But it’s delicious. 🙂

Enjoy!

KATH’S BANANA BREAD [Hippie Edition]

3-4 ripe or over-ripe bananas

1 egg

1/4 cup oil …. 1/4 cup applesauce

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups flour …. 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

2 tablespoons of chia seeds

In a large bowl, mash the bananas. Add egg, sugar, oil/applesauce, and vanilla and stir well. Combine flour, salt, and baking soda and add to banana mixture. Toss in chia seeds. Mix well. Pour into greased 9-inch loaf pan. Bake at 325 degrees for one hour. Cool in pan for 10 minutes. Turn out onto rack to finish cooling.