Tired of the usual banana bread? Low or out of wheat flour? Try Banana Barley-Oat Bread, which you can make in minutes in your air fryer. You can also bake the bread in the oven, if you prefer. The bread mixes up quickly, and it comes out soft, moist, and with a delicious nuttiness from the barley flour. I use quick oats in the batter, which gives the finished bread a bit more texture as well as making it moister, in my view. If you want to leave out the oats and use only barley flour, you can. Just substitute a half cup of barley flour for the oats. The bread will be more crumbly in texture than if you used the oats. I top the bread with walnuts, which toast up to a wonderful crunchiness as the bread bakes. You can also add a handful of raisins, dried cranberries, or even chocolate chips to the batter before baking it, if you like. I actually prefer the bread "as is," so you can taste the full banana flavor and subtle barley flour.
Air Fryer Banana Barley-Oat Bread -- Makes 4 Mini Loaves or 1 Large Loaf
1/3 cup of canola oil
2/3 cup of buttermilk
1 egg
1/3 cup of dark brown sugar
1 cup of very, very ripe mashed banana (2-3 bananas)
1 1/2 cups of barley flour
1/2 cup of quick oats
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/2 - 1 cup of broken or chopped walnuts (optional, but good)
In a medium bowl or measure, whisk together the oil, buttermilk, egg, brown sugar, and mashed banana. Stir in the barley flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, and salt until just combined and no white streaks remain. Spritz four mini loaf pans with non-stick cooking spray (or if you're baking the bread in the regular oven, use 1 large loaf pan spritzed with non-stick spray). Divide the batter among the pans and sprinkle the top of the batter with the walnuts. Bake the mini loaves, two-at-a-time, in the air fryer at 320 degrees for about 15 minutes or until golden and a pick inserted in the center of a loaf comes out with no wet batter attached. Let the loaves cool a few minutes in their pans before turning them out to cool completely. Repeat the cooking process with the remaining two pans. If you're making one large loaf in the regular oven, bake the batter for about 50 minutes at 350 or until golden and a pick inserted in the center comes out with no wet batter attached. Let the loaf cool in the pan for about 15 minutes before turning it out to cool completely.
