Guilt Free Banana Bread

I had my first request this week for something to bake, which was really exciting! We had a lot of overripe bananas left in our fruit bowl at work, and so some of the girls were wondering what to do with them rather than throwing them out. Then, they thought of me! I was happy to oblige by taking the bananas home and re purposing them into something delicious!

Whenever I have overripe bananas, I always seem to go to banana bread. I just love it so much! So I couldn’t go past an opportunity to bake delicious banana bread for the office. But I realised that lately I’ve been baking a lot of sweet things, and thought it might be time to cook something a little healthier. I mean, I can’t always bake sugar filled treats, as much as I want to. So I decided to try out a recipe for healthy banana bread, and see how it turned out.

This recipe was really simple, quick and delicious. It ended up being gluten free, dairy free and refined sugar free, which means that it is practically guilt free. I couldn’t believe how delicious it tasted given it didn’t have any sugar in the recipe, apart from the sugar from the bananas and a little bit of honey! It really surprised me that I can make something healthy that still satisfies my sweet tooth. And despite my concern that something so healthy wouldn’t go down well with my office crowd, everyone loved it! A lot of them loved it even more because they didn’t have to feel bad about eating it one bit.

There are a lot of ‘healthy’ banana bread recipes out there, but this one was quite simple, and didn’t involve too many ingredients you wouldn’t have on hand. It is based on coconut flour, which is becoming far easier to get, and the only other thing you needed was Almond Butter. But you could easily substitute this for peanut butter or any other nut butter. I also sprinkled cacao nibs over the top, but you could easily put anything over the top, like blueberries, raspberries, banana slices or sliced almonds. It’s completely up to you! You could even put chocolate chips on the top if you wanted to make it a little more naughty!

Adapted From	Ambitious Kitchen
Serves	12 slices
Preparation Time	15 minutes
Cooking Time	25 minutes
Ingredients ·         4 medium ripe bananas, mashed up ·         1 tablespoon of honey ·         1 teaspoon of vanilla extract ·         ¼ cup of almond butter ·         2 tablespoons of coconut oil, melted ·         2 eggs ·         ½ cup of coconut flour ·         ½ teaspoon of baking powder ·         ½ teaspoon of baking soda ·         ½ teaspoon of ground cinnamon ·         ¼ cup of cacao nibs Method 1.      Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and line a loaf pan with baking paper, setting aside. 2.      In a medium bowl combine the bananas, honey, vanilla, almond butter and coconut oil. Using an electric mixer, mix the ingredients until combined and smooth. 3.      Add the eggs in, one at a time, on a medium speed until combined. 4.      Using a medium speed, mix in coconut flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt until completely combined. 5.      Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Scatter the cacao nibs over the top of the batter evenly. 6.      Bake for 25-30 minutes or until when a skewer is inserted it comes out clean. 7.      Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool completely. Slice into 12 even pieces.

And there you have it! It’s such a quick recipe and simple to make. And the result was really delicious, but very good for you. You won’t feel guilty going back for a couple of slices of this one, and I am sure you will want to! It is quite sweet surprisingly, but has a really nice coconut flavour, which I really liked. And using ripe bananas really brings sweetness so you don’t even need sugar!

You can enjoy this banana bread as it, it is quite soft and moist, but does hold its shape. Otherwise you can toast it in a sandwich press for a truly decadent experience. If it’s not sweet enough for you, you could always add some yoghurt and honey on the top.

Let me know if you would like to try this recipe yourself, and especially let me know if you give it a go!

Until next time, happy baking!

Ella xx

Lemon and Honey Almond Cake

This weekend, I spent most of my time eating or baking. It was most certainly a weekend well spent! I do love eating out and trying new restaurants on my weekends, but it’s also a lot of fun cooking and baking as well. And this weekend it was my mum’s birthday on Sunday, which gave me a great excuse to spend time in the kitchen (like I really needed any).

My mum is gluten intolerant, and also not a huge fan of chocolate, which for me is something I will never understand. So I really needed to think hard about what cake to make her. I knew she liked more natural flavours of spices and nuts in cakes over a traditional sweet cake, so I started here. I myself have found that I’ve moved more towards these flavours when looking for cakes to cook anyway, as cakes based on nuts and spices are just so delicious!

I found that a lot of the recipes for almond meal cakes tend to end up requiring flour anyway, which is quite frustrating when trying to make gluten free cake. You can make these cakes without flour; it’s just that there seems to be a real lack of flourless recipes on Pinterest. But I did manage to find one that I liked in the end. I was being a bit picky, as I didn’t want to make a plain cake for mum’s birthday; it needed to have something a bit special to set it apart.

In the end, I found a recipe, with the help of my sister, for this lemon and honey almond cake. It appealed to me because you made syrup to go with the cake, which ensured that it had a lot of flavour and was really moist, which sometimes you lose with almond meal based cakes. The cake was deliciously sweet and zesty at the same time, and the addition of berries on the top really added to it. I also found that it rose a lot more than I was expecting, given it didn’t have any baking powder in it. All it uses is the egg whites to give it volume, which meant that the cake was nice and light. It ended up being a delicious cake that even my partner enjoyed, and he normally likes his cake full of chocolate and sugar. It actually ended up being dairy free too, if you don’t add ice cream (which I highly recommend).

The main thing that mattered was that my mum loved it (there she is posing above next to her bday cake). But I actually enjoyed it so much that I thought I should share it with you all. I adjusted it a little from the original recipe and the cake wound up being amazing, so I’ll share this with you and hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I did!

Adapted From	Your Home Based Mom
Preparation Time	30 minutes
Cooking Time	55 minutes
Serves	12 slices (depending on the size of them)
Ingredients Cake ·      ¼ cup of olive oil, plus extra for greasing your cake tin ·      1 ¾ cup of Almond Meal, plus additional for dusting the pan ·      1/3 cup of Tapioca starch (or potato starch if you have this) ·      ½ teaspoon of Salt ·      1 cup of Caster Sugar, divided into ½ cups ·      1/3 cup of Honey ·      4 large eggs, separated, plus 1 egg white ·      ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract ·      Zest of two Lemons ·      ¼ teaspoon of almond extract ·      Berries for topping Honey and Lemon Syrup ·      ½ cup of Caster Sugar ·      1/3 cup of Honey ·      Juice of two lemons ·      1 cup of water Method Cake 1.     Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius. Place the oven rack in the bottom half of the oven. 2.     Get your cake tin and brush the sides and bottom with olive oil. Cut baking paper into a circle to fit the bottom of the pan, and place in the bottom. Brush this with more olive oil and dust with almond meal. 3.     In a medium bowl, mix together almond meal, tapioca starch, and salt. 4.     In a large bowl, combine ½ cup of sugar, 1/3 cup of honey, lemon zest, 4 egg yolks, vanilla, almond extract and olive oil. 5.     Using an electronic handheld mixer, or a stand mixer, beat until smooth and creamy. This should take about 3 minutes. 6.     Beat in the almond meal mixture gradually, until just incorporated. 7.     In another bowl, get your 5 egg whites and whisk until foamy. 8.     Gradually whisk in ½ cup of sugar, until glossy peaks form. This should take another 3 minutes. 9.     Gently fold the egg white mixture into the cake batter until combined. 10. Pour the batter into the pan. 11. Bake the cake for 50-55 minutes, or until golden brown. The cake should spring back when lightly touched. 12. Allow the cake to cool completely, and remove it from the pan by running a knife around the edge first. Honey Syrup 1.     Mix together the sugar, honey, lemon juice and water in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer on a high heat and reduce to a medium heat. Allow to simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes. The mixture should have reduced and become syrupy. 2.     Brush part of the syrup mixture over the top of the cake. I poked holes in the top with a cake tester to allow the syrup to seep through the cake more easily. 3.     Cut up berries that you have on hand and place on top of the cake. Drizzle more of the honey syrup over the top of this. 4.     To serve: serve up the cake with ice cream and drizzle a tablespoon or two of the remaining honey syrup over the top of each slice, and the ice cream.

And that’s it! My recipe for a delicious, syrupy, gluten and dairy free cake! Who said that having food intolerances has to be boring! There are so many great recipes out there nowadays, and I think this one might taste just as good if not better than a cake with flour in it! I certainly didn’t feel all heavy after eating this, which was really nice. And the cake itself will last for a few days in the fridge, if it doesn’t get eaten first!

Until next time, happy baking!

Ella xx