Bananaless Bread

Today I had an overwhelming desire to make (and eat) banana bread.

Only I had no bananas.

I didn’t let that stop me, though.  What did I have?

After rooting around in the freezer, I came up with some packets of frozen, grated carrots.  A few months ago I had these carrots in my fridge, and I just knew I wasn’t going to use them before they went bad.  So I grated them all, separated the mess into 1 cup portions, and froze them.

Well, I like carrot cake, so maybe I could substitute carrots for bananas.  Carrot cake is yummy with raisins, so I would add that, too.  Only it turned out I had cranberries, not raisins.

So I got out my Betty Crocker Cookbook and looked up the banana bread recipe.  I followed it exactly, substituting defrosted shredded carrots for the bananas, adding cranberries (instead of raisins), and I also added 1 cup of sunflower seeds (in place of the optional walnuts).

Here’s the Before photo, ready to hit a 350 oven.

How’d they turn out?

Pretty darn good actually.  Not as moist as banana bread, but not dry by any means.  The sunflower seeds give it a nice crunchiness, and the cranberries aren’t tart at all.

I just had a nice little slice with a cold glass of milk, and it made for a great afternoon snack.

Here’s the After photo.  See, the one on the right is missing a tasty slice.

I don’t think they are as “thick” as banana bread, but they aren’t dense bricks either.

Right next to the banana bread recipe in my Betty Crocker Cookbook is a zucchini bread recipe.  Maybe next time I’ll try that one with carrots.  Carrots and zucchini are probably closer cousins than carrots and bananas.