Yesterday was the first day of school for my youngest, it was pouring and I had some over-ripe bananas sitting on my counter. I don’t know what that adds up to for you but for me that means baking. But Sammi, I don’t think, is not a big banana bread fan and personally, I wanted something that would be warm and wonderful when she walked in the door only 45 minutes later – banana bread takes too long. So I scoured My Recipes, looking for things made with banana, that had appeared in Cooking Light, and found this recipe. Easy to do, tasty and it was ready when Sammi walked in the door.

banana_snack_cake.jpg

Banana Snacking Cake

Ingredients

  • 6 3/4 ounces all-purpose flour (about 1 1/2 cups – btw I love measuring flour but c’mon do scales really measure to the hundredth decimal?)
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup plain low-fat yogurt (didn’t have but used 1 cup of low fat buttermilk instead)
  • 3/4 cup mashed ripe banana (about 1 medium)
  • 1/4 cup canola oil
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 large egg, lightly beaten
  • Cooking spray
  • 1/2 cup frozen fat-free whipped topping, thawed (we didn’t bother with this)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375°.
2. Weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour and the next five ingredients (through salt) in a large bowl; stir with a whisk. Make a well in center of flour mixture – not sure why I bothered, with the buttermilk the liquids totally overpowered the dry ingredients anyway.
3. Combine yogurt, banana, oil, vanilla, and egg in a small bowl; stir until well blended. Add yogurt mixture to the flour mixture in large bowl, stirring just until moist.
4. Pour the batter into a 9-inch square metal baking pan (I used an 11×7 pan) coated with cooking spray. Bake at 375° for 20 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool cake in the pan 10 minutes on wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack. Serve with whipped topping.

This came out to 5 Weight Watcher Points Plus (no topping), when I plugged it into their recipe builder.