No egg Lemon Blueberry Banana Bread

It's Snowpocolypse 2015 in Portsmouth New Hampshire and we were cooped up inside all day. I thought this was a perfect opportunity to use the blueberries and bananas I just bought! 

This recipe has no butter, no milk, and no eggs. Since we were working with an eggless recipe we used baking powder as a leavening agent. This is where more of the food science comes in! 

Since there aren't any eggs being used in this recipe, we need more leavening elsewhere, so this calls for more baking powder to be used. Baking powder is made up of sodium bicarbonate while baking soda is pure bicarbonate. This means that the baking powder contains baking soda which reacts with moisture and heat and causes little air pockets to form thus causing the baked product to rise. Baking powder also contains an acid salt (like tartaric acid), and cornstarch. The reason I used baking powder over baking soda is that baking soda can give an unpleasant bitter taste, and it doesn't contain an acid to balance it out a bit like baking powder.

I first combined the dry ingredients, and in a separate bowl I mashed bananas and combined the wet ingredients. 

The final product, despite there being no eggs had a light, almost angel food cake-like texture, and it wasn't as dense as other banana breads. The lemon juice really shined through and warm blueberries were a welcome flavor to my taste buds.

We are all set during this blizzard!

Ingredients

3 ripe bananas

2 cups flour (we used Napoli Antimo Caputo)

2 T lemon juice or half a squeezed lemon

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 handful of oats

2 tsp baking powder

2/3 cup sugar

1 cup blueberries

3/4 cup water

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and grease the sides of the banana bread pan. Mash bananas in a bowl until smooth (a couple small bits are fine). Add the lemon juice and vanilla.

Combine all the dry ingredients and pour into the wet ingredients while mixing. Pour mix into pan about half way to 3/4 of the way and sprinkle some sugar on top for sweetness and texture.

Pop into the oven for 40-50 minutes and check doneness with a toothpick or fork.

Enjoy!

Nutrition info per serving (1/10 piece):
Calories - 242 kcal
Carbohydrates - 44g
Fat - 6g
Protein - 4g
Sodium - 65mg
Sugar - 18g

*courtesy of recipe nutrition calculator on myfitnesspal.com