Bananas generally get scoffed in our house. I like them a bit under-ripe, so they have a bit of bite, then there’s usually a window of opportunity of a few days when the boys will eat them, before they start to go brown. After that, we usually keep them to make pancakes at the weekend.  Recently, my boys have been asking me to save them to make banana bread instead, so I’ve been experimenting with a few recipes from t’internet.

Our new fave is this one, from the I Quit Sugar website. I can’t copy the recipe here, unfortunately, but I wanted to share the link because it’s so good and very easy to make.

The recipe uses dry ingredients and wet ingredients, measured separately, then mixed together. The wet ingredients are 3 bananas, 2 eggs, coconut oil, milk, cider vinegar and vanilla essence.

The dry ingredients are: buckwheat flour, almond meal (I assumed this meant ground almonds) baking powder & soda, salt and a variety of spices. I used cinnamon, ginger, allspice and nutmeg, as I didn’t fancy the cardamom suggested – it seemed too exotic for banana bread.

It also has an interesting topping of pecans drizzled with coconut oil and cinnamon, which we really liked and did the second time I made it. They give it a bit of texture, but soften over a couple of days – unless you eat it quickly, of course. I chopped mine up to make the loaf easier to slice.

One tip I would give is to grease the loaf tin and pour the mixture in directly, rather than faffing about lining with paper. My loaf tin is fairly old but it is non-stick and it turned out very easily.

As you’d expect from IQS, there’s no added sugar in the recipe, so it feels very virtuous and the kids think it’s cake. Winner. Best served still warm and slathered with butter.