Recipe of the Week: Blunanachini Mini Loaves

Blunanachini (bloo-na-na-kee-nee): Simply put, it is deliciousness in a mini loaf. Banana bread on crack. Blueberry muffin after a hard night on the town. The question really should be: What ISN'T Blunanachini???

Well my friends, you'll just have to make the recipe and find out for yourselves what makes this tasty treat so stupendous.

PS... This is NOT my photo. I was too lazy to take any, so I used the photo from the original recipe which I modified, but it still looks pretty much the same. Got it? Good.




Blunanachini Mini Loaves

3 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 C vegetable oil
1/2 C apple sauce
3 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 C white sugar
1 C shredded zucchini
1 C mashed bananas
2 1/2 C all-purpose flour
1/2 milled flax
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 Tbsp ground cinnamon
2 C fresh blueberries

Yield: about 12 mini loaves

Preheat your oven to 350F. Grease your mini loaf pan.

Combine eggs, vegetable oil, apple sauce and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Stir in sugar until you get an evened-out mixture. Stir in zucchini and bananas until combined.

Next, if you want to do it the right way, you would combine the flour, flax, salt, baking power, baking soda and cinnamon in a separate bowl so that they are all mixed together before you add it to your wet mixture. This ensures an even distribution of ingredients. I'm lazy... I did not do this and they turned out just fine. Your call.

Mix in dry ingredients one cup at a time until completely combined. I like to take a measuring cup to spoon the mixture into the mini loaf pan so that I know each one is getting the same amount in it and my loaves come out even. For this, I used 1/2 cup of batter for each mini loaf. You could probably go as much as 3/4 of a cup, but that will add about 10 minutes to your bake time.

So... if you are using a silicone mini loaf pan, you should put it on a cookie sheet prior to filling it so that you don't slosh things all around trying to get it into the oven. Next, spoon about half a cup of batter into each greased mini loaf. Bake for approx. 40-50 minutes until inserted toothpick or knife comes out clean. The original recipe said to bake for 50 minutes, but mine came out just perfect around 43 minutes. Depends on your oven, so I would start checking at 40 minutes.

Cool in mini loaf pan for about five minutes, then remove from pan and place on cooling rack or waxed paper. Once completely cooled, I put mine into plastic bags, tied with a ribbon and gave a few away. It was cute. Enjoy! Comments please!