SMB: Banana Bread

Banana Bread
Adapted from Jackie's Mom's recipe.

1 1/2 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
6 tbsp olive oil
1 cup mashed banana (approximately 2 very ripe medium bananas)
1 egg plus 1 tbsp olive oil + 1 tbsp water
1/2 cup chopped walnuts*

Preheat oven to 350 F/180 C.
Grease and flour 9x5 loaf pan.
In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Add 6 tbsp olive oil and mix until resembles crumbs. Stir in mashed bananas, egg + 1 tbsp water & 1 tbsp oil until just blended.
Add walnuts and fold batter. If mixture seems a bit dry, add a bit of milk.
Scrape batter into loaf pan and spread evenly. Sprinkle extra cinnamon on top.
Bake 35-40 minutes or until knife inserted into center comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and cool completely on rack.

Makes one 9x5 loaf.

*Notes*
1. You might be wondering "what changed?" from my mom's original recipe. Umm...a lot. It's not that I don't like the original (in fact, I love it! Maybe a bit too much), it's just that I wanted to play around and try to make it a bit healthier. Especially considering that I couldn't do a half recipe which is what I usually do for SMB (surprise! Bet you thought we were eating family-sized servings of muffins, biscuits, and breakfast cookies. Nope, just Will + Jackie sized) because I couldn't find a suitable "half" for the 9x5 loaf pan. So if the two of us are going to be eating an entire loaf of banana bread over the coming days, it needs to be healthier. Ok, so what did I change?

- Used 1/4 cup less flour. The original recipe called for 1 3/4 cup flour. I was worried about the bread being too dry because I only had 1 banana (we had eaten the rest before I decided to make banana bread) hence the flour lessening, but I think I would use less flour anyway.
-Halved sugar. The original recipe called for 2/3 cup sugar; I used 1/3 cup. With the bananas providing so much natural sweetness, I didn't see the need. Plus I think our palate has changed somewhat since moving to England; we're not too keen on super sweet foods. In the future, I will probably sub out even more sugar with applesauce (and then, subsequently, probably add that 1/4 flour back in....confused yet?).
+Added cinnamon. Also makes up for using less sugar.
s Substituted 6 tbsp olive oil for 1/2 cup butter/shortening.
s Substituted 1 tbsp oil + 1 tbsp water for 1 additional egg. The original recipe called for 2 eggs. Subbing both eggs in the future would probably work out fine, though the bread might be a bit more crumbly.

2. Suggested variations: chopped nuts, coarsely chopped or dried fruits, chocolate chips, orange zest. Add 1/3 cup buttermilk for super moist banana bread.