Banana Bread Part 1: The sugar free one

Earlier this year, I discovered to my dismay that one of my favourite Singaporean baking blogs had shut down entirely. The blogger didn't just stop blogging; she took down all her archived recipes as well. I was so annoyed. So I've decided to be more diligent at clipping/reproducing recipes I've discovered online.

I never met a banana bread/cake/muffin recipe I didn't want to try. There's just something about banana baked goods that I love. I've tried and "collected" quite a number of keepers over the years so I'm going to do a series of posts on just banana bread.

This was a recipe I got via Karen Cheng - a Perth based family and fashion blogger. Like her, I swap some of the flour for almond meal and it makes for a crumbly, more bread like texture. The great thing about this recipe is that there is a sugar free option which makes it a good snack for my toddler. I currently bake a batch of this almost every week.

As for the mix ins, if you read the original post, you'll see that she says that she just throws in whatever is in her pantry: choc chips, nuts, seeds, raisins etc. I haven't tried all that but this is a pretty flexible recipe; I'd say almost any thing you toss in ought to be alright as long as you don't exceed the 100g stipulated.

Ingredients

75 g butter (unsalted)
2 medium eggs at room temperature
450 g ripe bananas, weighed with skin on
1-2 tablespoons or maple syrup or honey (you can omit this altogether. I usually add about 1 tablespoon of maple syrup just to counter the bitterness from the nuts)
1/4 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
100 g chopped walnuts (her recipes says 100g but I usually don't bother measuring this out. I just grab about a handful)
1.5 cups (or 225 g) self raising flour*
A handful of sunflower seeds (optional)

*If you don't have self raising flour, you can make your own by sifting together 1 cup of flour, 1.5 tsp of baking powder and 1/4 tsp of fine salt. You can also swap out some of the flour for almond meal. I typically use 1 cup flour and 1/2 cup almond meal.

Method

1. Heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Lightly grease a loaf pan and line the base with baking paper.

2. Melt the butter and let it cool.

3. While the butter is cooling, mash the bananas

4. Mix the honey/maple syrup into the cooled butter

5. Add eggs and combine well. Then add mashed bananas and chopped nuts and stir well.

6. Sift in flour, baking soda and pinch of salt. Stir until just combined.

7. Pour into the loaf tin and sprinkle with sunflower seeds if using.

8. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until your cake tester comes out clean.  Leave to stand for a few minutes then cool on a baking rack.

9. Eat. Delicious with butter and drizzled with maple syrup. Good on its own too!