I bought a box of fresh local apricots the other day and I wanted to use them up, along with one overly-ripe lonely banana. Wouldn’t a nice loaf of whole wheat sweet bread would do the trick!
So, I googled, and would you believe most of the apricot/banana bread recipes use “dried” apricots. These were yummy FRESH apricots. Then, I thought, wait, apricots are just like peaches, so why not find a nice peach bread recipe and modify it with apricots instead.
I found what looked like a good ginger peach bread recipe over at honestfare.com – yummy, never thought of adding ginger. Great idea! So, this recipe is inspired partly by Honest Fare and partly by my other two sweet bread recipes. Of course, it’s made with whole wheat flour, and it’s got less refined sugar and more fiber than most sweet breads.
100% Whole Wheat Apricot Nut Poppy Sesame Banana Bread
Ingredients:
10 fresh apricots (or approx 375 grams)
1 large over-ripe banana, mashed
2 oz nuts – almonds, walnuts, etc
3/4 cup almond oil
1/3 cup white sugar (or brown if you prefer)
1/4 cup raw honey
2 large eggs
1 tsp real vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg (freshly ground if you have it)
1 Tbsp poppy seeds
1 Tbsp sesame seeds
2 cups whole wheat flour (King Arthur white whole wheat if possible)
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350° and get a loaf pan ready, either lining it with parchment paper, or greasing with oil.
In food processor, grind nuts
Halve the apricots, taking out the stone. I left the skins on, as it adds more fiber and nutrition, but you can peel them if you’d like.
Hand-chop an apricot or two into small diced pieces; then drop the rest of the apricots into the food processor (with the nuts) and chop/mix them. Not too fine, sort of the consistency of chunky salsa.
In a large bowl, mix/whisk the oil, sugar, honey, eggs and vanilla.
In smaller bowl, mix together baking powder, baking soda, spices, seeds, and flour
Fold dry ingredients into bowl of wet ingredients and gently combine
Fold in the apricot/nut mixture, as well as the banana.
Pour into loaf pan. Allow to rest for a 5-10 minutes.
Bake for 45-60 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.
Additional Notes and Photos
Halving the apricots was very easy. Just slice along the diameter and the fruit just fell open.
I thought leaving a few larger chunks of apricot would give it extra color and bursts of flavor.
The food processor chopped the nuts and apricots into a salsa-like mixture
The bread batter was distinctly orange!
It smelled so good while baking!
It turned out very moist. Almost a bit too moist. The flavor was very apricot-y and very sweet! DH admitted it wasn’t his favorite sweet bread, and actually at first bite, the flavor was a bit different. But it’s still tasty. Would I bake it again? Hmm, maybe.
Nutritional Data
Loaf is approximately 38 oz – 19 servings @ 2 oz each
Calories: 194
Carbs: 20g
Fat: 12g
Protein: 3g
Cholesterol: 22mg
Sodium: 41mg
Sugar: 10g
Fiber: 2g