This Apple banana bread is sweet and spicy with an old-fashioned, wholesome taste. It makes a great breakfast, snack or side dish. It especially goes great with a large glass of milk, tea or coffee.

The bread is easy for beginners to make because there is no kneading involved. When baking, it is important to mix all wet ingredients and all dry ingredients separately before incorporating the two. It also usually works best to mix the wet ingredients in the biggest bowl and pour small amounts of the dry ingredients in a little at a time.

The best thing about this recipe is that it uses whole wheat flour. Although it will slightly change the taste and texture of what you’re making, it’s entirely possible to replace whole wheat flour for all-purpose flour in almost any recipe. Make sure to look for the small yellow sign on the front of the flour that guarantees the product contains whole grain, because terms like “whole-wheat” and “multi-grain” can be misleading.

This recipe is very low in sugar compared to most baked goods. The most questionable ingredient is molasses. Some nutrition theories paint molasses as evil because of the way it is processed, but, due to high amounts of nutrients such as potassium, calcium and iron, molasses has long been regarded as a folk cure-all.

Bananas are often used instead of eggs in vegan baking. Very ripe bananas, brown and spotted, bake the best. If you’ve got bananas that are about to go bad, you can keep them in the freezer until you’re ready to bake with them.

If you buy unsweetened applesauce you may add another half cup of sugar, although it’s not necessary. Feel free to use any kind of sugar (brown, white, raw, cane)  or a mix of a few types. There’s no reason to run out and buy sugar if you can scrape some from a supply you already have, or better yet, borrow from your neighbor!

tgleason@chroniclemail.com