Spelt Peanut Butter Banana Bread

I have a love/hate relationship with Target. Sometimes it feels like I'm in some kind of bizarre maze. You think you know where some item is and yet it isn't there. So, then you have to start playing mind-reader. "OK, how did the person who designed this store decide to classify food storage jars? Home decor? Kitchen? Storage?" You find yourself wandering from section to section, up and down all the aisles with the ever-increasing suspicion that there someone standing over you wearing a white coat and holding stop watch.

The love part of the relationship is that Target prevents me from going to a store I have a hate/hate relationship with, which is Wal-Mart. The other thing I love about Target is that they can put on a mean clearance sale. They usually are nice enough to put the clearance items on the end caps of the aisles. So, I can walk down one side of the grocery section and find everything that's been marked down, which is how I ended up with spelt flour.

I'm still not 100% sure what spelt is. According to the source of all questionable, but quick knowledge, Wikipedia, it's a sub-class of wheat. Although it contains gluten, apparently some people with gluten issues can tolerate it better than wheat flour (I cannot confirm this). I've been trying to use more wheat flour when I bake to up the nutritional content, so I figured spelt would be similar. I found some on sale at Target and decided I would see how it worked.

Some people are impulse buyers, but I am an impulse baker. If the urge to bake hits me, I will drop what I'm doing and head for the kitchen. Scott has on one occasion had to convince me that 9:00 PM the night before a vacation is not the time to try homemade granola bars. The other day I realized I had two bordering-on-over-ripe bananas sitting on my counter. Once banana bread come to mind, there was no stopping me. And it allowed me to test drive the spelt flour.

Notes: I've made banana bread before, so I decided it was time for a twist. The combination of peanut butter and banana has always been a favorite of mine; I used to eat them together as a sandwich as a kid. Peanut butter banana bread sounded pretty cool to me.

One of the keys to this dish is a whisk. The directions I had instructed you to put the banana in first, which prevents whisking. I did not whisk in the brown sugar and I ended up with a few undissolved bits that burned on the bottom of the bread. It was still really tasty, but I'll be sure to dissolve that sugar really well next time.

The spelt flour worked well. In appearance, it's much finer than regular wheat flour. It's still drier than white flour like wheat is, but it's not as dry as wheat in the finished product. I'm going to try making pizza crust out of it and see how it works.

Ingredients (adapted from Smitten Kitchen's):
1 1/2 cups spelt flour
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup natural peanut butter
1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon of kosher salt
2 ripe bananas
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350.

Melt the butter (I was lazy and did this in the microwave because I didn't want to get out a pot). Add the butter to a large bowl. Whisk in the brown sugar and peanut butter.

Add the beaten egg, vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon, and your mashed bananas.

 
Sprinkle the salt, baking powder, and flour over the wet mix.

 
Combine them with a spoon or spatula just until it forms a batter. The batter will be slightly sticky, but wet.

Pour the batter into a loaf pan that has been buttered or sprayed with cooking spray.

 Bake at for 45-50 minutes until a tester comes out clean. Cool the bread on a rack for about 30 minutes.

Once the bread is cool, turn it out of the pan. Slice off a piece and enjoy with a nice glass of milk!