Can this Banana Bread be Saved?

I have a confession to make.  Despite my mostly-vegetarian, quinoa-loving, local-eating lifestyle, I just don’t like whole wheat flour.  I think whole wheat pasta tastes just like the box it comes in, and every time I try to bake with whole wheat flour, I regret it.  However, we came into several bags of the stuff the other week, and after making some extra nutritious play-dough, I was still left with far too much of the finely ground fiber-fest.  I also had several black bananas, so the next step seemed obvious.

In retrospect, I should have used a combo of white and wheat flour, but in my zealous pursuit of using all of the WW flour, I went a little overboard.  The result was nothing short of brick-like.  It was so dense and dry that even putting a generous dollop of Nutella on every bite just made me wish I was eating the Nutella off a spoon.

Did I mention that I made two loaves of this nasty stuff?  I contemplated just chucking the whole thing in the trash, but I have had a few too many Friday-you-know-what’s lately, so I decided to persevere. 

The Joy of Cooking told me that for bread pudding, you should only use yeast breads, not ones leavened with baking soda, so I went online in search of a different recipe for bread pudding to redeem my sad banana bread.  Just a heads up, it is pretty much exactly the same as the recipe in the Joy of Cooking.  Oh, J of C, why you gotta lie like that?

Anyway, I cut the offending ‘nana bread into chunks, added a few other ingredients, and Voila!  The sweet smell of redemption.

Banana Bread Bread Pudding

Ingredients:

One loaf stale banana bread, cut into 2-in. cubes
1/2 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
4 large eggs
2 c. milk
3/4 c. sugar
1 t. vanilla
1 t. cinnamon

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 9×9 baking dish.  Scatter bread cubes in dish and top with chocolate chips.  Whisk together all other ingredients in a bowl.  Pour over bread and chocolate.  Bake 30-40 minutes until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Top with butter and maple syrup if desired.