Banana Bread w/Bacon Maple Syrup

You'd probably never guess it but we typically eat pretty healthy here. I'm always looking for great healthy dishes to feed to the family. So I was extremely happy when a colleague of mine gave me several gluten free and dairy free cookbooks. This one recipe for banana bread looked good so I tried it. I mixed up several different flours to create the gluten free flour to make the dish. Then I mashed the bananas and added eggs and vanilla. I even added maple syrup instead of sugar. That's right... I went super healthy on that banana bread.

When I told my mini me we would have it for breakfast, he turned to me and said, "Can we have it with bacon?" What?!? I made this super healthy, might I add delicious, banana bread and my child wants to sully it with salty, fatty bacon. Then I thought about it...bacon might be good. Why not add a nice bacon and maple syrup drizzle. And that's how the banana bread with bacon maple syrup was born.

*Note: This recipe is not gluten free. Nor sugar free. Hey, if you're going to do it, you might as well go all the way.

Banana Bread w/Bacon Maple Syrup and Walnuts

Ingredients

1 1/3 cup of flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp of salt
3 overripe bananas
2 eggs
1 cup of sugar
2 tsp of vanilla
1/2 cup of vegetable oil
1/2 cup of chopped walnuts
1/2 cup of maple syrup
4 slices of bacon

Directions

If baking your bacon...put 4 slices of bacon in to a cold oven. Set the oven timer to 17 minutes and allow the oven to heat up to 400 degrees. After 17 minutes the bacon should be cooked perfectly and crispy. Pat the bacon with a paper towel to remove excess oil and chop the bacon into small pieces.

Set the oven temperature to 350 degrees and spray bunt pan or 4 x8 loaf pan with oil.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.
Mash ripe bananas with a fork.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar and vanilla.
Then mix in the oil and bananas.
Mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients.

Removing a moist cake from a  pan can be hard. It is sometimes helpful to spray the cake pan with oil then dust it with a little bit of flour.

Transfer the batter into the pan and bake about 45 minutes until golden brown. If you are using a loaf pan the cook time is about 1 hour.

Once finished transfer the bread onto a wire rack and let it cool.

In a bowl mix the bacon, chopped walnuts and maple syrup.

Place the bread on a serving dish or plate and drizzle the bacon walnut syrup onto the bread.

Now dig in! It's perfect with a cup of coffee.