Blueberry Banana Cheesecake Bread

We eat a lot of bananas at my house - plain, with peanut butter, in oatmeal, you name it. Sometimes we buy too many, and half of them will pass an acceptable level of ripeness before we have a chance to eat them...so I’ll mash some up to make these delectable blueberry banana muffins - my go-to recipe for using up super ripe bananas. They are perfectly sized for breakfasts, as well as snacks that don’t make you feel too guilty. But, as with many things that I make a lot, I got a little bored with these and wanted to mix things up a little bit. I came across this recipe that literally does just that: banana bread split by a cream cheese layer - yum! I’m a huge fan of cheesecake, so adding a layer of cheesecake-y goodness sounded like the perfect boost for my basic recipe.

 

Ingredients:

Base banana bread recipe can be found here

Add-ins: ~¾ cup blueberries (I used frozen, and did not thaw before adding to the batter, but did try to remove any excess ice that had built up)

For cream cheese filling

8oz cream cheese, softened (I used reduced fat)

6 TBSP all-purpose flour

½ cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9x5 loaf pans.

Prepare the blueberry banana bread batter according to the directions found here.

For the cream cheese filling, combine all ingredients and mix well (use a hand mixer with whisk attachment for best results).

Pour banana bread mixture into the loaf pans until they are ½ - ⅔ full. Pour half of the cream cheese mixture into each loaf pan on top of the banana bread batter, gently spreading it with a spoon or spatula to fill all corners. Top with the remaining banana bread batter.

Bake for 50-60 minutes, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Tent foil over the loaf pans after about 30 minutes to bake evenly and prevent the top and sides from cooking faster than the center.

 

Let the bread cool for about 15 minutes, then slice and enjoy with a cup of coffee or tea!

~Karla


Find us on Facebook
 

Blueberry Banana Muffins

I often find myself in the position of trying to make use of super ripe bananas in creative ways, such as banana chips, oatmeal, or rolled up and baked in a pie crust with walnuts and brown sugar, kind of like an empanada. Most often, though, I make some sort of banana bread treat - banana split bars, banana bread, banana bread with walnuts, banana muffins (with or without nuts and/or chocolate chips), chocolatey-banana muffins...lots of banana-bread-type stuff, many of which use the same basic recipe. Recently I made blueberry banana muffins, which got some pretty great reviews! Here’s my tried-and-true banana bread recipe with a blueberry twist.

Ingredients: (about 2 dozen muffins, or 2 loaves)

Basic recipe:

2 cups whole wheat flour

⅛ tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

1 cup butter/margarine (I used ¾ cup canola oil, ¼ cup applesauce)

2 cups sugar (I used half white and half loosely-packed brown sugar)

4 medium bananas, ripe

4 eggs, beaten (I used EggBeaters)

Optional add-ins:

~¾-1 cup blueberries (I used frozen - no need to defrost)

~¾-1 cup chopped walnuts

~¾-1 cup dark chocolate chips

Heat oven to 350F. In a small bowl, coarsely mash the bananas.

Sift flour, salt, and baking soda together in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together butter/margarine and sugar until smooth. Stir in bananas and eggs and mix until well-blended.

Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix just until combined. Stir in your add-ins of choice (this time I only used blueberries for the add-in). 

Spoon the batter into a lined muffin pan, filling each cup about ⅔-¾ full. Bake 18-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

If you want to make bread loaves instead of muffins, divide batter into 2 greased 4"x8" loaf pans and bake 50-60 minutes, until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. 

Let cool before serving.

~Karla


Like us on Facebook:
 

Simple and versatile banana bread recipe in the form of delicious moist blueberry banana muffins!http://cooksofcakeandkindness.blogspot.com/2015/06/blueberry-banana-muffins.html

Posted by The Cooks of Cake and Kindness on Monday, June 29, 2015

Chocolatey-Banana Muffins

Every once in a while there is an overload of bananas in my kitchen :-). So far, banana nut bread has been my primary go-to recipe to use up ripe bananas. There are a few other things I like to make as well, including shira (Indian semolina pudding), banana pancakes, bread pudding, and good old shikran (a simple Maharashtrian dessert – sliced/mashed banana, milk, sugar, cardamom powder). But these typically don’t call for as much banana as the banana bread. So whenever I had more than one old banana to get through, I would always turn to the banana bread…. until last weekend. I realized that I was a little bored of the banana bread and wanted to try something slightly different, so I decided to add chocolate to it. But I didn’t quite know what else to change in the recipe to adjust for this addition, so I kind of just played with the ingredients till the batter tasted good and seemed to have good consistency… and it actually turned out pretty nice! This can be baked as a loaf, but I think it is better as muffins because of the light and moist texture.

Ingredients: (Makes approximately 18 regular sized muffins.)

1 cup sugar

2/3 cup butter

2 eggs

2 cups flour (all purpose/wheat)

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

a pinch of salt

2/3 cup buttermilk (See note below)

2 medium-sized ripe bananas (mashed well)

3/4 cup melted dark chocolate

chocolate chips (optional)

chopped walnuts (optional)

Heat oven to 340 F. Line muffin pan with liners or grease the pan.  Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a small bowl (sift if necessary).

Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and beat until combined. (Do not beat after this step. Use a spatula to mix ingredients). 

Add the flour mixture and buttermilk. Mix well with a spatula. Add the melted chocolate and bananas, and mix until combined. Add chocolate chips and walnuts and mix well.

Fill the muffin cups ¾ full and bake for ~22 min or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. If you wish to sprinkle chocolate chips on top, sprinkle them about 15 min after putting the pan into the oven.

~Gayatri

Note: If you don’t have buttermilk, use 1 Tbsp. lemon juice/vinegar for every cup of milk. Mix them well and let stand for about 5 min.