Banana Nut Loaf

The creation of a banana nut loaf was inspired by two separate things.  The first inspiration was a banana cake I tasted at a neighbour’s house which contained walnut pieces and had a deliciously moreish flavour (a touch, or perhaps slightly more, of alcohol, I found out afterwards!).  The second inspiration, strange as it may seem, was my breakfast one morning which was mashed banana with a couple of good spoonfuls of ground walnuts (with a few other ground nuts and seeds mixed in).

Not only was the flavour combination of banana and walnuts appealing but I also believed that putting them together in a loaf would negate the need for too much sweetening in the way of refined sugar, since bananas tend to be relatively sweet anyway.

I first tried the loaf with no added sugar at all however this definitely gave a taste of something missing!  Ultimately, the measurement of one and a half tablespoons of sugar was all that was needed.

For extra flavour, I decided to forsake the alcohol of my neighbour’s recipe and just use vanilla essence!

Banana nut loaf is nice by itself but even more delicious spread with butter!

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 25g oil
• 1½ tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• ½ cup mashed ripe banana
• ¼ cup milk
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ¾ cup ground walnuts
• ½ cup brown rice flour
• ½ teaspoon baking powder

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 180° C.

Line a 20cm x 8cm (approximately) loaf tin with baking paper.

Beat together the eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla.

Mix in the mashed banana.

Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and mix in.

Add the ground walnuts, brown rice flour and baking powder.

Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf tin (the mixture is quite runny).

Bake in the pre-heated oven for 30 minutes.  Test with a skewer before removing from the oven.