Skinny Banana Bread with Cream Cheese Swirl

The other day I woke up on a cold, rainy morning with two over ripe bananas on my kitchen counter and a craving for something sweet. Bananas in that state are fairly rare in my house because I love them and usually eat them long before they get to that condition. The sweet craving is, unfortunately, an all too common occurrence. But I'm trying to stick to my new year healthy and light eating plan and I already know I'll be doing some cheating on Valentine's Day. So, I decided to make a skinnier banana bread.  I compared the myriad of recipes, did some calculations, flipped a coin and settled on these ingredients and quantities.

Of course the bread would be even skinnier without the cream cheese swirl but I really, really like a swirl. I remember back in the early fall, there was a recipe going around Pinterest for ultra low-calorie pumpkin bread with a whole glob of cream cheese in the middle and I kind of had that in mind. So I skinnied up the swirl as well and a great new light recipe was born.

The changes I made to lighten up a more traditional banana bread recipe were to replace half the sugar with artificial sweetener, cut the butter from 1 stick to half a stick and use low fat butter to cut the fat and calories further still. I didn't use any apple sauce because the buttermilk and mashed bananas were already adding a lot of the missing moisture. The cream cheese swirl is made with low fat cream cheese and uses only 4 oz. instead of the more typical 8 oz. By my calculations, each slice contains approximately 185 calories which is far less than a typical sweet bread. But, most importantly, it's totally delicious. Enjoy!

Ingredients
Bread:
1 3/4 Cups all purpose flour
1/2 Cup sugar
1/2 Cup artificial sweetener (I used Splenda)
1/2 Teaspoons salt
1/2 Teaspoon baking soda
1 Teaspoon baking powder
4 Tablespoons light butter
1 Teaspoon vanilla
1 Egg
1/2 Cup low fat buttermilk
2 Over ripe bananas

Swirl:
4 oz. Low fat cream cheese, at room temperature
1/4 Cup artificial sweetener (I used Splenda)
1 Teaspoon vanilla
2 Tablespoons low fat buttermilk (you can use regular milk)

In a bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, artificial sweetener, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Blend in the butter using a fork or pastry cutter until the mixture is a little crumbly. In a separate bowl, mash the bananas and add the vanilla, egg and buttermilk. Add the wet mixture into the flour mixture and stir to combine.

In a separate bowl, mix together the cream cheese, sweetener, vanilla and buttermilk (or milk) until completely smooth. Pour half the banana batter in a buttered and floured loaf pan. Add the cream cheese mixture and top with the remaining banana batter. Using a butter knife, gently swirl the batter a couple of times but don't over mix. Bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 50 minutes. Makes approximately 10 servings.