Banana Bread

Banana bread is one of my favourite home desserts to make. It tastes great, smells heavenly and is quick and easy to make.

Growing up my mum would make banana bread and put Daim in it as toffee/choc chunks, and ever since no banana bread is complete without it. I took my favourite banana bread recipe from Love and Lemons, adapted it, and created a variation of my own.

This banana bread is incredibly versatile, the dark brown sugar can be swapped for light brown, granulated, coconut etc… I wouldn’t recommend using any liquid sweeteners like maple syrup or honey or any ‘sugar replacements’ like xylitol or stevia. The Daim can be swapped for nuts, toffee chunks, choc chips or chunks, dried fruit…whatever you love to add into your banana breads. My mum actually tried this recipe out and she’s gluten intolerant so she swapped the 1 1/4 cup flour for 1 cup sorghum flour and it worked so the loaf can also be gluten free. As for the greek yogurt, if you can’t find any, get plain full-fat yogurt and strain it until it gets thicker and gets to the same consistency as greek yog, this can also be done with vegan yogurts such as coconut, cashew, almond, soy etc… as long as you strain most of the liquid and moisture out it should work, also try to get full fat as reduced fat ones will be the wrong texture.

serves: 1 loaf

prep/cooking time:

Ingredients

2 small ripe bananas, mashed

1/2 cup (85g) dark brown sugar

1/3 cup (60g) oil, neutral or coconut oil work great, olive oil also works but you can taste it a little

1/3 cup (85g) full fat greek yogurt

1 tsp vanilla extract or paste

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

1 1/4 cup (175g) flour

1 cup (105g) almond flour or hazelnut flour

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

1 cup (150g) Daim, chopped into chunks optional

Method

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180°C fan, and oil a loaf baking tin.

2. In a small bowl add all the dry ingredients; flour, almond flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, salt. Stir to fully mix the ingredients

3. In a separate big bowl, add the mashed bananas and sugar, mix until all sugar clumps have broken apart and the mix is homogenous. Add the rest of the wet ingredients into the bowl; oil, yogurt, vanilla and apple cider vinegar. Whisk the ingredients until they come together.

4. Add 3/4 of the Daim chunks or whatever else you may be using to the bowl of dry ingredients, toss them to coat in the flour mix, this will help the chunks to evenly distribute throughout the loaf. Keep the 1/4 to sprinkle on top of the loaf.

5. Add 1/3 of the flour mix into the wet mix and whisk to incorporate. Switch to a spatula and fold the rest of the dry ingredients into the wet. Try to be gentle and not mix vigorously as this will produce a dense crumb.

6. Pour the banana bread mixture into the prepared oiled loaf tin. Spread it so it is even across the whole tin. Scatter the remaining Daim pieces on the top of the batter. Pop it into the pre-heated oven and bake for 35-45 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.