Just the Flax, Ma'am

On rainy days I generally find myself rummaging through my favorite recipes looking for something to bake. Lately it's been loaf cakes and breads, and I've been using ground flaxseed meal quite a bit. Hodgson Mill makes ground flaxseed meal that's a great source of Omega-3, so whenever I use it I feel a little more healthy! You can find it in most big grocery stores these days, usually in the health food or organic section.

Today I made this - probably thee best banana bread I've ever had! Click here for the recipe from Cooking Light. I make one addition: half a cup of dark chocolate chips, and this time I used 3 bananas instead of the usual two, and tried to leave them a little chunkier when mashing. Always gets rave reviews from my husband!

Here's another great cake that I make often, sometimes lemon, sometimes orange: it's Barefoot Contessa's Lemon Yogurt Cake (click here for the recipe), and boy, do we love this! I've blogged about it before, but it bears repeating because it's that good!! I omit the glaze on top, it's plenty sweet enough without it. Where the banana bread recipe actually calls for the flaxseed meal, I add it to this recipe in place of one of the eggs. As a general rule of thumb, you can replace one egg with a tablespoon of flaxseed meal and three tablespoons of water, and it doesn't affect the finished product at all. This is an extremely moist and flavorful cake, and the flecks of flaxseed meal give it some visual texture too, as well as the aforementioned health benefits.

Well, those are the "flax"! I hope you'll experiment with this healthy ingredient in your baking adventures too!