cream cheese banana bread

Just got done concocting this recipe and decided I'd better write down what I did before I forgot. I saw a recipe in the simple and delicious magazine for "lightened up" cream cheese banana bread. I really couldn't see what they did to lighten it. It still had more sugar than I usually use, and only replaced 1/2 of the regular butter with light cream cheese. It did use baking soda and baking powder - less bananas and flour.... Anyway, I combined my more banana, less sugar variety of bread with the cream cheese and did sub out a bit of baking powder for baking soda. We'll see how it turns out. - YUM! This is probably my favorite banana bread to date. It came out of the oven nicer shaped than it was when I took the picture. It had already fallen.

Update 2/12 - I totally forgot to make the orange glaze last time. I made it this time - super yummy. I didn't need quite as much glaze as I made though, and really it was good without the added sugar, but for a treat the glaze was delicious.



Ingredients

• 4 oz light cream cheese
• 1/4 cup butter - softened
• 1/2 cup sugar (it was a generous 1/2 cup because I was cutting it down, but not so generous that I couldn't walk from the pantry to the mixer with the cup full in my hand.)
• 2 eggs
• 2 1/3 cup mashed ripe banana. (I think I was closer to 2 today but I used 5 bananas)
• 2 cups flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans, divided

Orange glaze

• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 1/2 Tablespoon orange juice
• 1/2 teaspoon grated orange peel

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter, cream cheese, and sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time then beat in mashed bananas and vanilla until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Fold in 1/4 cup pecans. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan. Sprinkle other 1/4 cup pecans on top.
   
3. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.
4. Mix glaze ingredients together and drizzle on top of the bread.