Banana Bread with Mung Bean Flour

I am fascinated with mung beans.

If you've ever had Asian dessert breads, the sweet white bean filling is made out of them. They can be ground up and made into seafood pancakes, like they do in Korea, or they can be baked with sugar and coconut milk like they do in Viet Nam.

Why are they important? 1/2 cup of mung beans has 25 gm of protein. Most store bought protein bars have around 15 gm of protein, so this is a cheaper way to get your needs... as well as being delicious. Eat a piece of this right after a workout to help your recovery, and it will also curb your appetite the rest of the day.

After experimenting with Banh Dau Xanh (Vietnamese) I decided to use the flavor to make a high protein version of banana bread. You'll find this bread to be very filling despite not having any oil or sugar. Instead of cooking and grinding dry mung beans, I used Korean mung bean flour which has a much better texture. It turned out delicious- not too sweet, slightly crispy on the outside with a soft, moist inside.

If you don't live near an Asian grocery, here is how you can make mung bean flour.

Ingredients:


1 cup Mung Bean Flour (Noktu mil-karu in Korean)
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup Splenda
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 egg
1 mashed banana (really ripe and turning black)
1/5 cup water
1/5 cup soy milk
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
1/3 cup chocolate chips (optional, I add them sometimes to get my daughter to eat it)

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Mix dry ingredients first, then add the wet. Mix well. If the batter is too stiff, add a tiny bit of extra water. Pour in a greased 8X4 in sprayed with cooking spray
3. Bake for 40 min, or until a chopstick in the center comes out clean and the top is light brown.