Breakfast Banana Bread.

Truthfully, I’ve no idea how this recipe came about. I think one of the bakers adapted another recipe to make it vegan, but I’m not 100% sure. This one is great lockdown recipe, because it’s vegan it doesn’t use butter or eggs so it’s a great store cupboard recipe to have up your sleeve.

It’s a great base recipe to add whatever you fancy. We add nuts, chocolate chips, swirls of Nutella or a handful of dried fruit. We call it Breakfast Banana Bread as we often have it on the cafe breakfast menu toasted with butter and jam and sometimes with caramel and banana on our Sunday Brunch menu. We also serve it with yoghurt and fruit compote on our streetfood menu.

You can also top it with buttercream if you fancy something a wee bit fancier! (See picture below) but it’s harder (but not impossible) to call it breakfast if you do!

You’ll need:

4 very ripe bananas

100g (weight) sunflower oil

135g light brown sugar

300g plain flour

4 heaped teaspoons of baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

You’ll also need scales, a 2lb loaf tin, lined with grease proof paper. You’ll also need a hand held mixer or stand mixer with paddle attachment or a strong mixing arm, a bowl, a wooden spoon and a little patience. All options work really well!

This is what you do:

Get the oven on at 165c and line your loaf tin. In the bowl that will eventually hold hold everything, mash the bananas really, really well. You don’t want lumps of bananas in this. Then add in the oil and sugar and mix till it’s all combined. In a separate bowl weigh out the flour and add the baking powder and cinnamon and mix them to distribute everything evenly then add this to the banana mixture and mix.

You’re just looking for everything to be combined. The batter won’t be smooth because of the banana, so don’t worry about that. If you want to add anything in, now is when you do it but it really is lovely just as it is.

Scrape it all into the loaf tin and take a second to level it out. Then bake for 40 -45 mins but check after 30 mins to see if it’s browning too quickly. If it is, loosely cover with foil.

This recipe is really easy but the only remotely tricky part is making sure it’s baked all the way through. Use a skewer and probe the highest part of the loaf. The skewer should come out completely clean. Never just go by timing alone as all ovens are different and times really do vary a lot.

Let it cool in the tin for half an hour then turn it out. Don’t be tempted to cut it before it’s cool as it will crumble. That’s not willpower we always have, so trust us when we say it doesn’t work well!

It will keep really well for three days (well wrapped and somewhere cool, but not the fridge), but like every cake it’s at its best on day one. Maybe try it as it is on day one and try it toasted on day two or three (if it lasts that long)

photo: Matthias Kremer

Handy Hints:

Your bananas really do need to be ripe. The flavour will be so much better and your loaf will be sweeter. It’s really worth waiting for your bananas to ripen.

Taking the time to mash them really well is worth it. You won’t end up with lumps of banana in the finished loaf that often look a little grey and discoloured.

You can make this mixture into muffins, but adjust the baking time depending on the size of your muffins (ours take around 25 mins). Always use the skewer test to check.

Vegetable oil would work well in this recipe too, as would any flavourless oil.

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