Nutty Banana Nut Bread

The fight to stay at a healthy weight is a constant battle, especially for those of us who love to eat and cook together around our camp Dutch ovens.  The fight is double-dang hard when it comes to dessert.  Can I get an amen?

My better half has lost a bunch of weight (close to 100 pounds!) over the past year and I am so proud of him!  He has followed a very low carb diet and has inspired me to find ways to cut out sugar and carbs in as many ways as possible.  I started substituting ingredients like almond and coconut flour for AP flour and Stevia or Splenda for sugar.  It’s been a challenge with some steps forward and a few steps backwards.

I checked out some camp Dutch oven recipes online and found a few that sparked my interest.  Ashley from Practical Self Reliance shares my distain for camp Dutch oven dessert recipes that call for cans of pie filling and boxes of cake mixes.  Her banana bread from scratch has sour cream – yum!  Kent Rollins (one of my camp cook heroes) shared his sweet wife Shannon’s recipe for banana bread.  It calls for cream cheese – yes!!  Both bake their banana bread in a loaf pan on a trivet inside a camp Dutch oven for a classic loaf presentation, but I prefer to bake directly in our camp Dutch ovens.  So when I spotted Fresh Off the Grid’s banana bread, I was hooked.  And bourbon!  What a great idea!  There are a million more recipes out there but these caught my attention and inspired me to adapt for a low carb, healthy banana bread.

I adapted this recipe from America’s Test Kitchen. They named it Ultimate Banana Bread and I agree 100%.  Ultimate is the perfect name.  This recipe is packed with wonderful banana flavor!!  The key step is to concentrate the flavor of banana by reducing the water content in the banana mash.  The other key is to use really, really RIPE bananas.  There isn’t any way to skip this step.  If you don’t have almost black bananas, it isn’t worth the time or effort to bake banana bread.  Did you know you can freeze ripe bananas and use them later for baking??  Or how many carbs are in a large banana?

I adapted ATK’s recipe to replace AP flour with almond and coconut flour.  I added vital wheat gluten to give it structure and ground flax seed to add fiber and extra nutritional elements. (Note:  To make this recipe gluten free, don’t use the vital wheat gluten.) I also replaced the brown sugar with a lower sugar substitute.

NOTE:  This recipe can be cut in half and baked in a smaller (10-inch) camp Dutch oven OR bake it in a loaf pan on top of a trivet inside a camp Dutch oven.

ANOTHER NOTE:  This recipe can be baked without charcoal inside in two loaf pans.

Makes about 28 2-inch squares

Ingredients

1. Fire up a mound of hot charcoals, about 10-15, and place a 12-inch camp Dutch oven over the hot charcoal.  Add really ripe bananas.  Bring bananas to a medium simmer, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon for about 15 minutes.  The goal is to evaporate the liquid from the bananas without burning them.

   

   

   
   

   Remove or add hot charcoal to keep the banana mash at a moderate simmer (not too hot and not too cold).  As the liquid in the banana mash reduces, stir more frequently.    When you can drag your spoon through the banana mash and see the bottom without any liquid filling in the space, you are almost done.  You will have about 2 cups of banana mash. Here’s what it should look like when you are done.

2.  Clean camp Dutch oven with water and scrubby. Put it back over the fire to dry it out or use another 12-inch camp Dutch oven that is cool.  Cut a circle of parchment paper to fit the bottom of the oven.  Spray with oil.  

3.  Pour reduced banana mash into a large mixing bowl.  Add cut butter to hot banana mash.  Stir until butter has melted.

4.  Let banana and butter mash cool.  Whisk in eggs until yolk and whites are completely integrated into banana mash.  Whisk in low/no brown sugar substitute and vanilla.

5.  In another bowl, mix together almond flour, coconut flour, ground flax seed, vital wheat gluten (delete if gluten free), salt, baking soda, and chopped pecans.

6.  Stir almond flour mixture into banana and butter mixture.  Pour batter into prepared 12-inch camp Dutch oven.  Bake at 350 Fahrenheit for 40 minutes.  We put 11 hot charcoal in a circle underneath and 17 around the outer edge of the lid.  We rotated the lid (without lifting) one direction and the bottom the opposite direction after 20 minutes to distribute the heat and avoid a hot spot.

7.  Bake until the internal temperature is 200F, the top is golden brown, and the edges are pulling away from the side of the oven.

8.  Resist the temptation to dig in!  Let the banana bread cool completely before cutting and serving from the oven or turning it out to a plate.

Enjoy!