Banana Berry Oatmeal Loaf
I favour excess. To me, balance as a life goal is dubious and just plain boring. But by the end of last weekend, even I, lover of extremes, had to admit too much of a good thing is, well, not a good thing. We have chocolates in bars, in the shape of sea shells, soccer balls, Christmas angels and of course, several Kinder Eggs in a bowl tucked above the reach of long-armed pre-schoolers and mountain-climbing babies. We’ve got cookies, we’ve got candies. All of it is going in the garbage tonight. I’ll come up with some story to explain the sudden disappearance. Maybe the Grinch?
But having Ben and I home a lot meant a lot of requests for baking activities. Esme and I spent Saturday afternoon making this healthy antidote to the sugar fog we’ve been living in. It’s quick, easy and nice enough to share with friends. We brought a loaf up on the country visit we made on Sunday. Esme practically flew into our hosts’ arms, loaf extended, screaming, “Happy New Year!”
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup butter, softened
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 3/4 cup buttermilk
- 1 cup mashed ripe bananas (2 or 3)
- 1 1/2 cup flour
- 1 cup wholewheat flour
- 1/4 cup flax meal
- 1/2 cup rolled oats
- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup berries (I used blueberries, blackberries and strawberries but use what you've got!)
Method
Preheat oven to 375 degrees
Blend butter and sugars with a mixer until smooth and light.
Add eggs and milk and blend again.
Stir in mashed bananas.
Mix dry ingredients.
Combine dry and wet ingredients until just blended.
Don't over mix or you'll have a tough cake!
Stir in berries.
Pour batter into two lightly greased loaf pans.
Bake for 45 to 55 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
I used these great coated pear pan from Loblaws. They come with nice ribbons which meant Esme could give them away as a gift. 
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We're Ceri and Laura, a couple of magazine-editors-turned-food-bloggers. Also, we're mothers obsessed with delicious, healthy, family food. We're constantly thinking of ways to make your time (and our own!) in the kitchen easier and more productive, but still nostalgic for the days when dinner was cereal eaten over the kitchen sink.
2 Comments
Julie Brown
April 14, 15:57Who wrote this recipe?
1/2 cup brown ?? Brown what???
3/4 buttermilk? Is that a 3/4 of a cup? a tablespoon? Like seriously??
Ceri Marsh
April 14, 16:38Thanks for the tough love, Julie! Seriously! This an older post that obviously got a bit scrambled when we moved from Blogger to WordPress. I’ll get right on fixing it.
And it’s brown sugar and 3/4 cup of buttermilk.