Super Healthified Banana Bread

I told you I'd make a loaf of banana bread, didn't I? Well I didn't go back on my word...and here is the mouthwatering photographic evidence.



I've always been a sucker for my Mum's notorious banana cake. Needless to say, as with many other banana cake/bread recipes, it was misleadingly unhealthy (misleading because really, you'd expect a cake based around the humble banana to be somewhat healthy, wouldn't you?) -- packed with sugar, refined white flour, aaand... I don't remember what else. Probably a generous amount of butter/marg. But we don't want none of that!

So I guess you could say that this recipe acts as a kind of antidote or counterbalance to my Mum's banana cake recipe. Based upon this original recipe, I've adapted it very slightly to enhance its healthiness even more. You'd probably be pushed to find a healthier banana cake recipe, especially one that caters to both vegans (err...minus the honey) and those with gluten sensitivity. It sits just the right side of moist, has a gorgeous flavour and hits the sweet-tooth spot naturally (just bananas and 2 tablespoons of manuka honey to thank for that one). So yeah...delve in!



Ingredients:

200g spelt flour
2x 27g packets of quick-cook Quakers Oats
1t baking powder
1t baking soda
1t ground cinnamon
(Up to) 1t vanilla paste
4 medium sized bananas, ripe
50ml almond milk (unsweetened)
6T coconut oil
2T manuka honey
90g walnuts, 30g pumpkin seeds (add whatever nut/seed/dried fruit you prefer)

Pre-heat your oven to 350C or gas mark 4. Line a loaf tin with parchment paper (grease with a smidgen of coconut oil). That's the boring stuff out of the way. Now onto the mashing. Ahh yeah.



Get your ripened bananas and place (without skins!) in a (sizeable) bowl. Mash until they're nice n' squelchy. Meanwhile, melt your coconut oil in a bowl over a pan of boiling water. This shouldn't take too long. Remove the bowl from the heat and allow to cool slightly. When it has cooled, add it to your banana mix and combine well; add all other wet ingredients (hello vanilla, almond milk and honey), and stir vigorously. Might as well get an arm workout in there, eh?

Now that your wet stuff is all sorted, sieve the spelt flour into a separate bowl. This took me a bloody long time because spelt flour seems to have quite a lot of large grainy pieces that just got in the way whilst sieving. I orginally wanted to use all 260g of the spelt flour (as the original recipe had suggested); however, by the 200g mark my arm was aching somewhat from holding the sieve for so long - alas, I reached out for my trusty oats to save the day. Quakers did the job juuust fine.

Add the baking powder and soda into the flour mixture, plus the teaspoon of cinnamon (vital! Cinnamon can do no wrong), and stir well before gradually adding the dry mix to the wet. Keep on top of the blending and 'folding' sitch (yep, I do know some baking lingo) until you've got yourself a lovely looking batter.

All that's left to do is to measure your nuts and add them to the final mixture. Spoon into your tin, and place into the oven for up to 50 minutes. When time's finally up, remove from the oven and leave to cool. In my case, I was knife-in-hand after about 5 minutes of removing mine from the oven (naughty, I know). But hey, who am I kidding - warm/hot banana cake is simply too good to pass up on, especially when it's lathered with a dollop of peanut butter (a new discovery, and a match made in heaven).

Does anyone have any banana bread recipes to rival mine? This one seems to be calling my name... protein banana bread? Don't mind if I do!