Chocolate chunk banana spelt bread

For several years now, on Friday nights we have my sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and one of our neighbors over for games night. We’ll put the boys to bed, turn on some music and challenge our guests to Trivial Pursuit while Reef Dog, our extremely clever and persistent border collie, pesters our rivals in the hopes that they’ll go outside with her and throw a ball… for the entire evening. Obsessively playful dog or cunning dog related distraction tactic? (she laughs wickedly)

It’s an excellent way to unwind after the week, and to start off the weekend.

Of course a weekly evening of games could only possibly be enjoyed with a half-time coffee break and cake. We all take turns providing the cake, and this week it’s my turn.

Normally I would make some sinfully decadent, sugar laden chocolate overdose type of a cake but in light of this new blog, and as I endeavor to find alternatives to processed stuff, processed sugar being a pretty obvious one, this week I’ve decided to whip up one of my current absolute favorite recipes; chocolate chunk banana spelt bread. Of course it does have some sugar in the chocolate, but my feelings on chocolate are that the bit of sugar in the dark stuff is outweighed by the great benefits that we now know chocolate possesses including a serotonin boost, which is always a huge plus in my books. And apart from that, quite frankly to me my life without chocolate would be a joyless beige existence. No thank you!

I adapted this recipe from one that I found in this kind of eclectic book the Yoga Cookbook by Gaia publishing. Again I opted for spelt flour as it’s a firm favorite right now. I also lessened the amount of salt a little, added some vanilla, some cinnamon, and obviously the chocolate.

A note on using spelt flour; through many many failed, soggy experiments I have discovered that if you’re swapping another flour for spelt you need to either lessen the amount of liquid by about a quarter, or up the amount of flour. I tried to remove one of the bananas from the original recipe to allow for this, but the results were really dry. The flour to moisture ratio in the following recipe seems to be the perfect mix.

This loaf is excellent as is, but is also really lovely when you omit the chocolate and have it plain, or if swap the chocolate for nuts or dried fruit, or some combination thereof. It’s great for breakfast too!

So here’s you have chocolate chunk banana spelt bread, the proof that you can, in fact, have your cake and eat it too (or banana bread in this case).

Chocolate chunk banana spelt bread

2015-08-07 11:57:34

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Ingredients

1. 3 medium bananas (the riper the better)
2. 100g runny honey
3. 2tbsp coconut oil (or oil of your choice)
4. 1 tsp vanilla extract
5. 275g whole spelt flour
6. 1tsp baking soda
7. 1tsp ground cinnamon
8. 100g dark chocolate, chopped into chunks(optional)

Instructions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Lightly oil a 2lb loaf tin.
2. Place bananas, honey, vanilla and oil in a blender and blitz until the bananas are mostly smooth -or- if you don’t have a blender then mash the bananas well and beat in the honey, vanilla and oil until well combined.
3. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and any of the optional additions.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and gently but quickly fold together until just combined.
5. Scrape the batter into the tin and even out the top.
6. Bake for 1 hour, or until the top is dark golden brown and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool for 10 minutes in the tin and then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool.

Notes

1. To use whole wheat flour instead of spelt, lessen the amount of flour to 200g.

Roots & Wren https://rootsandwren.com/