I dont want to put you off by putting it in the title but this represents my first foray into 'vegan baking' - they are also low fat, low sugar - but this is not a dieters blog, its just 'happens to be'. They turned out well, but not as good as I would have hoped - if you were in the mood for real banana bread, you may be a little disappointed. The big draw for this was to cook from my aforementioned veganomicon but more importantly to showcase a new condiment - molasses which colours them an attractive brown. This also means you cant 'see' the banana AKA Aussie style banana bread and while I liked these a lot, I think that they could have been a lot more banana-y. I tinkered a little with the spices and really feel the vanilla was essential.
2 (or possibly 3) large bananas
1/4 cup applesauce
1/4 cup sunflower, canola or other neutral oil
1/4 cup sugar & 1/4 cup perfect sweet (or 1/2 cup of either sugar or perfect sweet)
2 tblsp molasses
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp mixed spice
2 cups plain flour
pinch of salt
Preheat the oven to 190o and lightly grease a muffin tin
If your bananas are yellow, cook them on an oven tray until skins are just black and they have softened (about 5 mins). NB If your bananas are brown, skip this step.
Mash the bananas until totally soft
Add the wet ingredients - sugar, applesauce, oil and molasses and whisk or stir until well combined.
Sift in the flour baking soda, spices & salt and stir well to combine. That's it! If the mood took you it wouldn't hurt to add some chopped walnuts and/or chocolate chips at this stage (maybe a 1/4 cup).
Then spoon into the muffin tin and bake for 15 - 18 minutes, until a little brown on top and nicely puffed up.
Cool on a rack - they may need a gentle nudge out of the tin with a palette knife.
Enjoy toasted with butter for breakfast. Apologies for the final, blurry photo...I must have been in a hurry to eat them.
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