Healthy Reese's Banana Bread

My momma makes the best banana bread in the history of the world.

The End.

 Unfortunately, this is not my momma's banana bread.  It is, however, an extremely delicious healthy version.

 With Reese's mini peanut butter cups hidden throughout.

 You heard me.

 I found a recipe for banana bread on Pinterest (of course) that included Reese's and peanut butter...as well as 14 gallons of oil, 5 pounds of sugar, and white flour.

 So I made a few adjustments, thought some happy thoughts, threw the pan in the oven and hoped for the best!

Reese's Reduced Fat Banana Bread
recipe adapted from Cookies and Cups


Makes one loaf (12 slices)


Ingredients:
3 ripe bananas, mashed*
1/2 cup PB2
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 egg whites
1/2 cup sugar substitute (Stevia in the Raw cup for cup)
1/4 cup Splenda Brown Sugar blend
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup oat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
11 Reese's mini cups, cut into quarters


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 


Grease loaf pan with spray. 


In medium bowl, whisk together flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt.  


In large bowl, stir together bananas, applesauce, egg whites, PB2 and sugars. Pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients and stir until just combined.  Batter will be lumpy. Fold in Reese's mini cups and spread batter into prepared pan.  


Bake 40-50 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire cooling rack.  


Once completely cooled, wrap in foil to store on counter top. 


*After getting halfway through my baking, I realized my bananas weren't as ripe as I would have hoped.  To be sure I didn't lose that banana flavor, I added a few drops of banana extract to the wet ingredients before mixing. 


The bread turned out wonderful!  I was totally surprised to see a pretty loaf of bread in the oven when the buzzer went off. 

 So of course, I needed to do something extra special with that delicious bread!

I've been noticing extremely tasty looking recipes for grilled cheese sandwiches all over the blog world.  It makes my heart sad, because bread and cheese don't fit into my lifestyle very well.  And they tend to be key ingredients in grilled cheese.

 Until the Reese's Bread Blackberry Pear Grilled Cheese was born.

Let snack time commence.

To start, I sliced some pears and made a little blackberry mush.  Figured whole blackberries would be a little difficult to keep inside a sandwich, eh?

Basically, I microwaved half a cup of blackberries for 30 seconds, mushed them up, and wa-lah!

 I had some fat free cream cheese in the fridge, so I cut off an ounce for each sandwich, then covered that in the deliciously oozy blackberry mush.

Threw a slice of pear on there, cut the slice of bread in half and had two pretty little half sandwiches.

 At this point, Wilberforce was hanging over my shoulder, licking his chops, waiting for his sandwich to be finished.

 Too bad for him, I had pictures to take.

 At last!  The skillet was hot, the sandwiches were ready, and I couldn't handle the hunger any longer.

 I sprayed a nice coat of Pam on the skillet, gently set my precious sandwiches on the skillet, and waited patiently while listening to the glorious sizzle of a grilled cheese in the making.

 Flip!

 PS...cream cheese doesn't melt nearly as well as Velveeta used to.  I ended up putting a pan upside down over the sandwiches to keep some heat in to help melt the cheese.  I'm sure there is a specific kitchen apparatus for such a thing, but I don't got one.

I don't.  Got one, that is.

I don't got proper ways of talkin', either.

 Mmmmmm.  Grilled cheese.  How I've missed you.

 Melty cream cheese.  Drippy blackberry mush.  Crispy Reese's Banana bread.

 Don't forget about the pear.

 You know it's a good grilled cheese sandwich when you have to eat it with a fork.  Savor that baby.

 Excuse me, I'll be in the kitchen.  Making another one of these little monsters.

 Dessert grilled cheese.  Who'da thunk?

---------------------------------------------

Wilberforce and I had a great day!  We made pancakes for breakfast, which is always the beginning of a beautiful day, then headed out into a beautiful sunny Colorado day.  We had sushi and frozen yogurt for lunch, spent some time wandering around outside in the sunshine, made a tasty delicious dinner of Cinnamon Coconut Quinoa and vegetable fries, and lounged around.

And we made more ice cream.

On the schedule for tomorrow?  More of the same.  Good food.  No work.  Reeeelaaaaax.