Banana bread (vegan)
Hello. One week of distance learning comes to an end for Adya and I am probably the happiest, phew! Parents and kids everywhere in the world where kids have been on a distance learning mode for more than a year now – hats off truly. I do not know how you guys are doing it without killing each other. Utmost respect and much love.
Anywho, banana bread was first introduced to me by my cousin Nithya. She made a batch of these and brought it home the first time she came to visit us in Dubai. Honestly that time I did not like this dish as much as I do now. If you are not someone who’s tasted banana bread ever or isn’t a great fan of it, just listen to me and give this guy a good chance. Your opinion completely changes after a few tries of these. I think its more of an acquired taste, this one. I am really glad she got me to taste this because now I love love love this one. It’s super healthy too and very very filling. Such an amazing chai companion this one is. Adyant also loves this one yayyy! He didn’t like it a few years back.
This recipe is super simple to make, requires only 1 vessel to mix all the ingredients, doesn’t call for any complicated ingredients or equipments. Need I say more? Just make it off and haffun. And this particular time where I took pics to blog, Adya has mixed the whole set of ingredients including the mashing of bananas. I love having him help me while baking and I can totally see how from claiming to be ‘helpful’, he is actually turning out to be helpful :).
And oh, right now I am typing this while slowwww walking on my treadmill while Adya is playing and video chatting with my nephew and amma back home! Love it and couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend a friday afternoon. Happy weekend people!
- 4 large ripe bananas chiquita variety
- 1/3 cup refined white sugar
- 1/2 cup virgin coconut oil or any vegetable oil
- 1.5 tsp vanilla essence
- 1.5 cups whole wheat flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon powder
- 3/4 cup roughly chopped walnuts
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In a large bowl, peel and place the 4 ripe bananas. Mash them nicely using a potato masher (or a mathu if you know what that means).
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Now add 1/3c sugar and whisk well.
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Then add 1/2c oil, 1.5t vanilla essence. Mix everything well using the whisk.
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Now add 1.5c wheat flour, 1t baking soda, 1t baking powder, 1t cinnamon powder.
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Mix everything well using a fork and ensure there are no lumps.
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Now add 1/2c roughly chopped walnuts into the batter and give it a mix.
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Grease a bread pan (9×5) and pour the batter into the pan. Spread/ smoothen it out if required.
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Sprinkle the remaining 1/4c chopped walnuts on top.
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Bake in a preheated oven of 180c for 45mins (or till the bread is completely baked).
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Check if the cake is completely baked by poking with a toothpick through the cake at a few places (center and around the center).
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Once the cake is completely baked, take it out of the oven and let it cool down completely (I have never been able to do this and I end up slicing it when it's still fairly warm and that's literally and figuratively not cool).
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Transfer to a plate and cut it into slices.
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Dig in with a cuppa chai!
- Each oven works different. Sometimes you might have to bake this for longer or shorter.
- The riper the banana the sweeter the cake. Actually, if you are not someone who cares for much of sweet, you can even reduce the sugar to 1/4c.
- You can reduce the walnuts to 1/2c. My mil wanted more the last time I made it and I incorporated the feedback and we all loved it.
- When my sil & I baked this when we were in India, we also added 1/4c semi-sweet chocolate chips to this and god, it tasted really good.
- You can use a smaller bread pan (I couldn’t find mine). You could also use a cake pan instead of a loaf pan if you don’t have one.
- You could even make these into muffins. Only the time to bake will reduce and I somehow like these better as slices than muffins.
- The next time I make this recipe, I am going to use 2 flax eggs and reduce the oil to 1/4c instead of 1/2c.
