Secret ingredients keep chocolate banana bread moist
My love for avocados goes well beyond guacamole.
I love avocados so much that I've made an avocado dessert pie that looks and tastes similar to a Key Lime pie. At first, the folks to whom I wanted to serve a slice shied away from it, until several loud “Yummmmm's” erupted from those bold enough to take a bite.
I've also made chocolate avocado pudding.
Many of you will probably groan shortly after reading that, but know that, for certain, the chocolate-loving friends to whom I served that avocado pudding, with a dollop of real whipped cream on top, asked for a second serving; it was that good.
That's why when Food Network kitchen's recipe for Chocolate-Avocado Banana Bread popped-up on my screen I firmly applied the brakes. The idea behind the Food Network's bread was to use mashed, ripe avocado for the usual banana bread shortening (butter?). They also doubled-down on the chocolate by including chocolate chips.
OK, they got me; I had to make it.
However, I could not leave well enough alone and decided to see if I could also reduce their chocolate banana bread's moderately-heavy sugar load.
Over the last two years, in my efforts to reduce all the sugars in my food plan, I've learned that the best path to reducing sugar in a baked good is to cut it by no more than half.
Sugar isn't just the sweet part of most desserts; it's there to add moisture, create texture and to caramelize (brown). Caramelization is important for the flavor profile of any baked dessert. No added sugars; almost zero caramelization; that equals deflated flavor.
Using half the sugars still leaves sufficient sugar to maintain moisture, create a good texture and most importantly makes caramelization possible.
I prefer using only natural sugars substitutes. There are simply too many ????? about artificial sweeteners for me to ever use or consume them. I'm still on a journey of discovery when it comes to natural sugar substitutes. For now, my not-artificial sugar substitute preference is stevia. Organic stevia.
Stevia comes from a stevia plant's leaves. Like any plant, stevia farmers want to produce as much stevia on their land as possible and not give any up to insects or to diminish the size of their plant's leaves due to weed competition.
I have no idea how much pesticide and herbicide they use on nonorganic stevia farms; I certainly don't want to eat those chemicals, even a little. That's why I use organic stevia.
One more sugar-saving change: stevia-sweetened chocolate baking chips for regular chocolate chips. I use Lily's brand Dark Chocolate Premium Baking Chips. Lily's chips deliver 40 fewer calories per ounce and zero sugars. Lily's also contains about 1 fat gram more than standard chocolate chips. Good deal.
After mixing up and baking my new, butter-free, low-sugar chocolate banana bread, I let it cool and then took it to a dinner party where everybody contributed parts of the meal. I asked everyone to guess the secret ingredient; no one could. When I revealed that the shortening wasn't butter, but avocado, everyone was amazed. No one guessed that it had less than half the sugars as the original, either.
Got some overripe bananas? Make my banana bread and see if any of your family or friends can guess the secret ingredient.
• Don Mauer welcomes questions, comments and recipe makeover requests. Write to him at don@ theleanwizard.com.