I have to say for the sake of this blog that I’ve become more inclined to change the names of my recipes to something more humourous. I’m not sure if ‘Ba-nah-nah’ has quite achieved this as such but at least I’m safe in the knowledge that I can happily sing along to the tune of Rihanna and Drake’s hit ‘What’s my name’- that’s when everyone’s out of the house and I can’t find a Kate Bush song that fits the ba-nah-nah. And there goes the dignity…
It’s one of those foods that I never really got on with at first, I’m not sure why but I’m sure the shape of the banana fruit always had something to do with it; of course now I’m more mature;) Throughout my childhood my parents would always try to get enough fruit in me as possible; a normal task. Why did they never think of banana bread? I think it foolish.
So here I’ve attempted to make a somewhat-healthy gluten-free banana bread.
Ba-nah-nah Bread
Substitution notes: It’s made with the basis of Buckwheat, Sorghum and almond flour. If you can’t get Mr Buck or Mrs Sorg, you could substitute it with ready-made gluten-free flour (and take out the Xanthan gum), whole wheat flour if you can take gluten, or millet flour which would really keep the ‘wheaty’earthy tone. I haven’t tried substituting the almond flour but I would recommend tapioca flour or coconut flour to really keep the texture. The butter used could also be replaced with oil, if you want to make this recipe dairy-free.
Ingredients
½ cup 60g of buckwheat and 60g ½ cup sorghum
1 cup (115g) of ground almonds
1 tsp (gluten-free) baking powder
1 teaspoon of xanthan gum
¼ cup (60g) of dark muscuvado sugar
Maple syrup (60ml)
-2 tsp cinnamon
– a pinch of nutmeg
A good pinch of salt
3 eggs
3 very very ripe bananas
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup (125g) of melted butter, or oil
Sprinkling of walnuts/50g chopped Dark Chocolate (optional)
Heat an oven to 170C.
Before you start make sure all your ingredients are room temperature it really helps the rise and the way it all comes together; eggs are your friend and they will thank you for this.
Grease and line a bread pan with olive oil/butter and put to one side.
Use two bowls and it’s foolproof. Nothing will go wrong.
Mix the wet ingredients together in one bowl and mix the dry ingredients together in another.
Mix the dry ingredients into the wet.
Do not over mix! You will get to a point as you stir that the mixture will turn from eggy yellow to a light brown. Stop as soon as this happens!
Bake for approximately 50 minutes – I would check the bread at 40mins to make sure the brownness on top is to your liking.
Wait until cooler…to eat (it’s just so lovely… warm..)
