How can I incorporate powdered peanut butter into a boxed banana bread?

Question

My husband has made this boxed Gluten Free Banana Bread Mix a number of times. It's easy, always comes out moist, and stays fresh for 3 or 4 days.

Ingredients:
1 package Banana Bread Mix from Anna
2 jumbo eggs
⅓ cup oil
3 ripe medium bananas pureed in a food processor or blender (approximately 1 cup)
⅔ cup chopped nuts (optional) (He leaves these out.)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Set rack to center.
2. Grease 8 ½ x 4 ½ inch. loaf pan.
3. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, mix all wet ingredients until creamy.
4. Add Banana Bread Mix from Anna™ and stir until well blended. Fold in chopped nuts.
5. Spoon batter into prepared pan and bake for 1 hour, or until center tests clean with a toothpick or knife. Let cool in pan 1 hour before slicing.

To add some additional flavor, he'd like to incorporate powdered peanut butter. The powder contains only organic peanuts, organic coconut sugar, and salt. (When making peanut butter, the ratio is one tablespoon water for each two tablespoons of powder. That ratio makes a thin consistency of peanut butter, similar to many brands bought off the shelf.)

Obviously he can't predict the level of peanut flavor, as that would be a matter of trial and error, but he'd like to start by adding 2 tablespoons of powder into the pre-made mix. His concern is that the banana bread will be dry. To avoid that, is there a way to adjust the other ingredients?

Here are some pictures of the peanut powder:

It's a light, loose consistency which looks like this:

Answer 1

Up to the quantity you're considering the effect of adding ground peanuts is likely to be very minor. This may even be true up to around the quantity of the chopped nuts. The extra surface area of nut powder compared to chopped nuts may make a small difference, that's all. The only way to be sure is to try it.

If it comes out a little on the dry side the first time, you might try adding a tablespoon of milk next time. Or even just increase the oil. But you'd have to be very careful to use the same amount of banana and have the oven exactly the same temperature and for the same time to notice any difference.

Answer 2

He's right. It likely would come out with a different consistency. That 1/3 cup of oil and maybe some egg would be partly absorbed by the peanut butter. That will affect the texture.

For a first try: In a separate bowl I would reconstitute the 2 T of peanut butter with water (4 T in this case). For easier measuring 4 T = 1/4 cup.

Add the reconstituted peanut butter to the batter, two options to mix in:

• thorougly mix in the peanut butter until it's fully incorporated into the batter
• or, swirl it in, kind of like a chocolate marble cake