Cinnamon Banana Oat Bread

 Farmers Wife Original Recipe.

It's Saturday morning, and you know what that means... Breakfast food!! I know I cook way too many muffins, breads and really fattening stuff. But be honest here, secretly you love that about me. ;-) I really do cook more than breakfast foods, it just happens to be my favorite meal of the day. Typically I bake way too much and end up sending most of it to work with my Hubby so I don't see it sitting on the counter calling me "Kim... Eat me! You way too skinny and beautiful, and the calories won't affect you because we love you so much..." Ok... Maybe I'm imagining things here, but I swear they really do whisper sweet nothings into my ear!

I've been trying to discover new ways of cooking recently, cutting out as much fat as possible, trying to create new Dairy Free recipes to share with my wonderful Sister in Law, and try out new flavors. It's been a lot of fun honestly, and so far the results have been pretty good. Including this bread! I have to say that this was not overly thought out, I did not make this intending for it to be dairy free, I was simply using what I had on hand. I think sometimes the best recipes are created this way, and this bread does not disappoint. It was fluffy and moist, and smelled amazing while baking, plus my little Sous Chef ate an entire slice, so you know it must be pretty good. Haha! You can make this both dairy free and with dairy, it's totally up to you, but either way I hope you'll enjoy this delicious bread!

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups All Purpose Flour
1/2 cup Old Fashioned Oats
1 cup Sugar
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
Dash Ground Nutmeg
1 1/2 Tablespoons Ground Cinnamon OR 1/3 cup Cinnamon Chips Tossed in Flour
1/4 cup All Vegetable Shortening OR Margarine, softened
1 Egg
2 Ripe Banana's, mashed with a cap full of lemon juice
1/4 cup Cinnamon Applesauce

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 325F degrees. Grease and flour a loaf pan, and set aside. Place all of the ingredients into your mixer, (except when using the cinnamon chips, save those til the end) and using the paddle attachment mix together. Once mixed add the cinnamon chips if using those. Mix again, if too runny add a tablespoon at a time more of flour, you want the consistency to be thick but easily spreadable. Pour into your greased loaf pan, and bake for 60-75 minutes. Bread is done when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let the bread cool for about 20 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto your serving dish and cut and serve.

Review:
This had such a homey and comforting taste to it. I used the cinnamon chips in my bread, which are not dairy free, but since they are SO hard to find this can easily be substituted for the ground cinnamon and will be just as tasty! It was easy and came together so fast, I would give this 4.5 stars!