I bought my very own blender for the first time a few weeks ago and I went on a crazy smoothie kick. I was trying to eat up as much produce as possible after weeks of traveling for work when I ate out at a restaurant almost every meal. I impulse purchased a practically life-size bag of kale from Costco thinking I would make green smoothies everyday. I bought a whole cluster of bananas since they are such an inexpensive, yet rock star fruit. They help prevent muscle cramps — you know, if you’re hitting the gym pre-holiday season — and are a great source of potassium. Even after about five days of smoothies, not only did I have half a bag of leftover kale, but my bananas had ripened too quickly for me to eat them all.

When my bananas turn spotty brown and just a little too soft to eat, I toss them in the freezer and wait for the perfect day to make some banana bread. I love a traditional banana bread, but this week I was feeling like a sweeter banana bread would be the perfect treat for Halloween weekend. Cinnamon is one of my favorite fall flavors, so it felt appropriate to incorporate a little cinnamon swirl into the bread for the festive occasion. You can certainly swap out a few ingredients to make it healthier. You could also use any banana bread recipe and simply add the cinnamon sugar mixture in the middle of the batter like I did here. In any case, here’s my version of cinnamon swirl banana bread.

After I made the batter using the kitchn’s recipe for a traditional banana bread, I just mixed about 1/3 cup of sugar with a tablespoon or so of cinnamon to create a cinnamon sugar. Scoop half of your batter into the bread pan, then simply sprinkle half of the mixture over the first layer and repeat with the rest of the batter and cinnamon sugar.

How gorgeous does this look with the sugar dusted crust on top? The bread is perfectly sweet, fluffy and best warm out of the oven. Hope this bread puts any leftover bananas to good use! Or if not, you can always use it as an excuse to buy a couple extra bananas.

Love food. Love self. Love life.
Gabriela