Hello and happy November to you! It's been about a month since my last post (whoops!), and things are about to get busier. So I wanted to try to share one more recipe with you before that happens. What's going to make me even busier you ask? A baby! We're two days past our due date so it really could be anytime now...
The recipe I'm sharing with you today was important to me to share with you sooner than later. If you're like us, you may have purchased a bit too much Halloween candy. Better safe than sorry though, right? It would have been a bummer to run out! But now, unfortunately, we're stuck with a lot of extra candy lying around the house. Mike and I have pretty good self control when it comes to candy, so we honestly won't eat much of it. But I don't want it to go to waste. So naturally I had the idea to bake with it! I also had some super ripe bananas to use up. So what do you get when you put ripe bananas and leftover Halloween candy together? Reese's KitKat peanut butter banana bread, of course! It's a no brainer really. ;)
To prep, I chopped up some Reese's peanut butter cups and KitKat bars ahead of time and put the chopped pieces in the freezer for a couple hours. I wanted the pieces to stay whole in the bread while they baked. For the bread recipe itself, I chose to follow a Cooking Light recipe. The recipe called for chopped peanuts but I omitted those. I also used half whole wheat flour and half all-purpose versus only all-purpose. Otherwise, I pretty much followed the recipe as is. Here you go!
Ingredients:
-1 and 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 large bananas)
-1/3 cup plain yogurt (regular or Greek is fine)
-1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
-3 Tbsp. butter, melted
-2 large eggs
-1/2 cup granulated sugar
-1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
-3/4 cup whole wheat flour
-3/4 cup all-purpose flour
-1/4 cup ground flaxseed
-3/4 tsp. baking soda
-1/2 tsp. salt
-1/2 tsp. cinnamon
-1/8 tsp. cloves
-1/4 tsp. nutmeg
-1 cup chopped (previously frozen) candy pieces
(Reese's and KiKat - or whatever other kinds you like!)
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9 x 5 loaf pan with cooking spray.
Combine first five ingredients (through the eggs) in large bowl or bowl of a stand mixer. Beat with a mixer at medium speed. Add both sugars, and continue to mix until well incorporated. In a small bowl, whisk together the flours, flaxseed, baking soda, salt, and spices. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, and mix well until incorporated (but be careful not to overmix). Stir in the chopped candy pieces.
Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for about 1 hour (but you may want to start checking for doneness after 45-50 minutes since ovens vary). Bake until a knife or cake tester comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan on wire rack for 15 minutes or so until removing from pan to cool completely.
This bread was incredibly moist. The peanut butter flavor was there, but it was subtle. And of course, the bread was slightly sweet thanks to the addition of the candy! But it wasn't too sweet, I promise. I guessed on adding about 1 cup of candy pieces, and that amount seemed to work well for the loaf. The banana, peanut butter, and chocolate flavors all complemented each other quite well. But that's no surprise. :)
If you have extra Halloween candy lying around like we do, definitely give this bread a try!
And I also wanted to take a moment to wish my wonderful husband a very happy second wedding anniversary today! Hard to believe that we tied the knot two years ago already. What a lucky lady I am to have him in my life. For fun, I was looking back at some of my Wedding Wednesday posts and remembering what a special day we had. The past two years have been amazing, but I also have a feeling that the best is yet to come! ♥♥♥
