As I mentioned in my last post I’ve decided to go vegan for a month, along with thousands of other people (visit Veganuary for more info). It’s too tortuous to bake for my family and not be able to tuck in myself so I’ve been experimenting with a few vegan recipes for sweet treats. I love raw brownies – and so do Miss R and Baby S – but R doesn’t like them. Finding things that everyone in the family will eat is a constant challenge but cake is usually a winner and this recipe for vegan banana bread was scoffed by everyone. In fact Baby S loves it so much that the rest of us have to eat it in secret. It has more sugar in it than I’d really like but it’s a great start and you really can’t taste that it has no dairy or eggs in it. Hopefully I’ll have a less sugary vegan bake to share with you soon as well.
It’s based on the vegan loaf cake recipe from the Honey & Co baking book. I’ve had my eye on this book for a while now and I’m so pleased to finally own it! It’s a shame that I’ve got it just at the point when I can’t eat most of the recipes because they’re not vegan, but there’s quite a few things in there that I’m pretty sure I can adapt.
I’m glad it’s good because I made the kids go all the way into central London on the bus so I could exchange a duplicate Christmas present for it at Waterstones. They enjoyed the trip past the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, and we found a nice little playground nearby to burn off some steam, but their favourite part of the trip was looking at all the books in the children’s department – and they didn’t even ask me to buy a single thing. We only left because I got tired of putting back the books that Baby S (soon to be toddler S I fear) was chucking on the floor!
Here’s how to make it if you fancy giving it a try. As ever I’d love to hear in the comments or via Twitter if you do make it.
Ingredients
175g caster sugar
250g plain flour (I used half white and half wholemeal)
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
100g water
100g date syrup
100g sunflower oil
2 very ripe bananas, mashed
50g currants
Preheat the oven to 190°C/170°C fan. Grease and base line a 1kg loaf tin with a sheet of baking parchment. If you allow a little overhang on the long sides you can use this to help you lift the cake out later.
Add the sugar, flour, bicarbonate of soda and the spices to a large bowl. Whisk gently until thoroughly combined. Place the water, date syrup and oil into a small saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring constantly so that it doesn’t burn. As soon as it’s just boiling pour it over the dry ingredients and stir well until combined. Stir in the bananas and currants.
Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 45 minutes turning the tin around halfway until it feels springy to the touch.
Allow to cool in the tin.
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