I am sure most everyone has tasted or at least heard of the very popular Greek dessert Baklava. A combination of walnuts, almonds or pecans, cinnamon, sugar nestled in-between layers of buttery phyllo dough. If that doesn’t sound delicious enough, after it is baked to a golden brown a sweet honey syrup is poured all over the baklava. The nut mixture soaks up this delicious syrup giving it a sweet soft texture that melts in your mouth.
Baklava Banana Bread 
Baklava Banana Bread with Greek Yogurt
Then you have delicious moist banana bread. I make mine with Fage Greek Yogurt and it is delicious. I make it often because I always seem to have bananas that get ripe before I have a chance to eat them. My intentions are good, as a New Year’s resolution I was set on making power smoothies to add to the resolution to exercise more. Well to my surprise the exercising is going much better and I have become an expert at Smoothies. I will be doing a whole Blog Post with recipes with amazing details about our cold nutritious drink.. I will even teach you how to make a smoothie to taste a little more like a frozen Margarita or a frozen Mudslide, haha!
Ok, back to the fusion of the Banana Bread with the Baklava. It all started because I had to make several pans of Baklava for one of my customers. When I finished I had some extra Baklava filling and several very unhappy over ripe bananas.
So I thought why not fill the center of the Banana Bread with the leftover baklava filling. The only problem is that the baklava mixture is dry until after it is cooked in the Phyllo and then drenched in the honey syrup. So I made a few changes and came up with a really delicious Banana Bread with a moist sweet Baklava filling.
I just happen to be going to my Dentist Sam Tsakiris so I decided to take a loaf to him and the two really great women that work with him, Cindy and Sylvia. Well let me just say that if your dentist gives you the thumbs up on something sweet, you know it has to be good. My dear friend Sam is no longer with us and we miss him so much. He would always get just as excited about food as I did…we shared that passion!
Baklava Banana Bread with Fage Greek Yogurt
prep time: 30min bake time: 60 minutes makes: 2 loaves
Baklava Filling:
2 cups walnuts toasted
1 cup pecans toasted
1/2 cups sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
freshly grated nutmeg or 1 tsp. ground
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1 tsp. salt
1/4 cup orange juice
2 Tbsp. honey
Place all the ingredients in a cuisinart and pulse until the nuts are ground well and they clump together. Remove and place in a bowl, they will be a little sticky and moist. Do not rinse out the cuisinart bowl, you will need it again to mash the banana mixture.
Banana Bread Batter:
2 cups whole wheat bread flour
2 cups regular flour ( you can use all regular flour if you would like)
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
1 stick of butter
1/2 cup of vegetable oil
1 cup brown sugar
4-5 ripe bananas
1 cup Fage Greek yogurt ( I use plain 0% fat)
4 eggs
3 tsp. vanilla
In a stand mixer or using a hand mixer: blend the butter, vegetable oil, and brown sugar together. While that is mixing, using the cuisinart bowl that you made the nut mixture in add the bananas, fage yogurt, eggs and vanilla, pulse until blended and bananas are a little chunky. Now add this mixture to the butter/sugar mixture. Let it blend for about 30 seconds.
Baklava Banana Bread with Greek Yogurt 
Baklava Banana Bread with Greek Yogurt 
Baklava Banana Bread with Greek Yogurt 
Baklava Banana Bread with Greek Yogurt Baklava Banana Bread with Greek Yogurt
In another bigger bowl mix the dry ingredients: the whole wheat flour, reg. flour, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon. Now pour the batter on top of the flour mixture all at once. Just mix it enough to be blended through. Do not over mix this batter.
With cooking spray, coat 2 loaf pans and then place 1/4 of batter in bottom of each loaf pan. Sprinkle each pan with half of the baklava mixture, then top each pan with the rest of the batter. You can save a little of the baklava mixture to sprinkle on top of the batter if you like. Bake in a 325 degree oven for 1 hour. Remove from the oven and let sit for 15-20 minutes and then remove from the pan and let cool on a wire rack.
Not only does this smell outrageously delicious, but it is so moist and delicious it melts in your mouth! Good luck and I know you will not be disappointed!
Tasty Travels….Chef Steff