Banana bread

One of the easiest vegan cakes to bake is definitely banana bread. Natural fibers coming from fruit helps to deliver the same texture you would expect from non vegan alternative usually containing eggs - in this case a completely unnecessary ingredient.

Ingredients:

• 3 small ripened bananas - best if they have at least some black spots on them. Weight with the skin on - 420g, 280g without the skin.

• 40g water

• 30g ground linseed

• 1 tbsp (10g) chia seeds

• 70g margarine

• 90g homemade sugar free apple sauce

• 170g demerara sugar

• ½ tsp cinnamon

• ½ tsp ground ginger

• ¼ tsp ground cloves

• ¼ tsp cardamom or 6 cardamom pods, deseeded and coarsely grinded (optional)

• ½ tsp orange extract

• ½ tsp vanilla extract

• 15g raisins

• 60g island trail mix (or papaya cubes)

• 225g plain flour

• 4 ½ tsp of baking powder

Topping options:

1. ½ Oatly whippable vanilla custard

2. Zesty icing - 1 unwaxed lime, 90g icing sugar and1 tsp lemon extract (optional)

Cooking method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan), gas mark 6

2. Spread a tiny amount of oil in a 9’’ (or so called 1Lb) loaf shaped baking dish then optionally lay it with baking parchment. It will be slightly easier to take it out of the tin, especially if you are using a gas oven and it seems to burn stuff from the bottom but if you exactly follow the recipe then you will be fine without :-)

3. Now place bananas in this baking dish and place in the oven for 8 minutes - this step is optional but it speeds up the cake baking process and helps to break down the fibresand turn them into sugars, if your banana is not perfectly ripe.

4. In a large bowl combine water with linseeds and chia seeds.

5. Add margarine breaking it into small pieces and mix again then add the rest of the ingredients apart from flour and baking powder. Stir well adding bananas from the oven to the mix as well. Make sure they broke into small pieces but don’t worry if some of the bananas will remain chunky, you may actually like that imperfection later ;-)

6. Add the flour and baking powder. Making sure of its even distribution, especially the baking powder, stir until batter is combined then pour into your baking dish and place in the oven.

7. Right away lower the oven temperature to 190°C (170°C fan, gas mark 5) and bake for 40 minutes

8. After this time the cake will be done but if you are having problems with your oven then you can always check the cake’s doneness by piercing it with a thin skewer. If it comes out mostly clean, take the cake out and leave to cool for 10 minutes then take out of its tin, leaving it upside down on a cooling rack or tray or chopping board.

Finishing the cake:

After around 30 minutes of taking the cake out of the oven you can start decorating it or enjoy it right away. You can store the cake in a room temperature only if you are not planning to use custard as its topping.

1. Options:

   1. For the custard topping:

      1. Whip the custard for a few minutes and pour over the cake.

   2. Zesty icing (doesn’t require refrigeration)

      1. Zest and juice 1 lime then mix it with 90g of icing sugar and 1 tsp lemon extract (optional). Evenly pour over the cake.

2. Finish the cake with a sprinkle of chopped nuts and dried fruit.

3. I strongly recommend getting some Raspberry powder, it creates such an amazing contrast by giving this vibrant, burgundy colour and you can use it on so many of your bakes or even just to decorate the plate! A pack of 120g costs around £8-9 but because you only need a tiny bit of it it should last for about 30 cakes like this one, so 30p each is not bad at all ;-)

Variations:

• Chocolate - Add 100g crushed into inch sized pieces dark chocolate (70% + preferably), you can skip adding ground cloves in this aversion)