This beautiful bounty of Sunday morning baking was based on the vegan banana bread in my first book, A Girl Called Jack, but uses some wholemeal flour and coconut oil for extra goodness. If you don’t have coconut oil, fear not, as the song almost went, Any Oil Will Do. Vegetable, sunflower, light or mild olive, groundnut, rapeseed, whatever you have to hand. Sesame might be a touch overpowering but if you like that sort of thing then give it a go. Same principle applies to the flour, if you don’t have any wholemeal then plain old white flour will be just fine, I’m just trying to make my baking a bit better for me these days, as there’s a curious correlation between writing a book (!!) and my jeans being rolled down around the waist because they don’t actually do up any more… harrumph.
Anyway, in the words of my gorgeous friend Sue and to join in the current Bake-Off frenzy, LET’S BAAAAAKE!
Makes a 1lb loaf tin, a 2lb loaf tin, 10 muffins or anything in between:
3 ripe fairtrade bananas, 24p (between 6p and 12p each loose – buy sold by weight not ‘snack’ bananas around 20p each!)
75ml KTC coconut oil, 46p (£2.50/400g)
50g fairtrade sugar, 5p (90p/kg)
120g plain or SR flour, 4p (Basics 55p/1.5kg)
100g wholemeal flour, 7p (£1.10/1.5kg)
1 tsp bicarb, 3p (£1.35/200g)
1 tsp fairtrade ground cinnamon, 7p (£1/45g)
First preheat your oven to 180C, and lightly grease your loaf tin or muffin tins.
Peel the bananas, slice, and toss into a large mixing bowl. Mash with a fork or (a recent discovery), the side of a thin cheap teaspoon makes an excellent mashing tool. As does a masher, as the name suggests, but I get that not everyone has every kind of whizzy dizzy kitchen gadget and if I ever write a recipe that requires anything of the sort then please WRITE TO ME IN CAPITAL LETTERS EXPRESSING YOUR DISAPPOINTMENT cheers.
(If your bananas aren’t old and squishy then add a little of the oil to start them off or ping them in the microwave for 10 seconds to soften them up – but not in a metal bowl or you’ll be calling 999 and won’t have any banana bread, boo.)
Add the rest of the oil and the sugar to the bowl and mix well. It won’t be pretty right now but that’s okay, if you’re pulling a face at the oily gloop, you’re doing it right. It gets better.
Add both the flours, bicarb, cinnamon and a fistful of dried fruit if the mood takes you. Mix well to form a lumpy batter.
Pour the mixture into your loaf tin or muffin tins, dust with flour, and bake for an hour in the centre of the oven – twenty minutes for the muffins.
And voila! Vegan banana bread with enough healthy twists to make it guilt free…
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